"Does anyone have a seam on their island and does it distract the eye?" It depends on the "quality" of the seam. Is the seam material a good color match for the counter? Are the edges on each slab at the seam clean/sharp and smooth? Are the slabs the same thickness? This should be no problem b/c C-Stone is an engineered product and production quality controls should demand this. Is the seam tight and very thin? If the counter material has a pattern (regular or not), did the fabricators and installers do a good job at "matching" the two slabs? (Yours does not appear to have a visible pattern to worry about.) If all the above are done properly, the seam should be almost invisible. Regarding using a single slab - if you reduce the depth of your island, you should be able to use a single slab. 1.5" counter overhang + 24" cabinet + 12" cabinet + 1" door + 15" overhang = 53.5" (15", btw, is the minimum overhang recommended for counter-height seating.) This gives you full 24" deep cabinets in the front of the island plus 12" deep cabinets behind the island for seldom-used items. Caesarstone slabs are 120 inches (3.10m) long x 56ý inches (1.44m) wide By reducing your island depth to 53.5", you should be able to use just one slab - no seam! Is that your main/cleanup sink in the island? I'm asking b/c it has very little landing or work space on the right - for me, that would not be acceptable, but perhaps you're OK with it...? IMO, I think you should have at least 24" on each side of a cleanup sink. If it's just a prep sink, then it's fine...ideally, I would aim for at least 9" to 12" on the non-working side of a prep sink, but if you can't fit it, then it will be fine. Good luck!

One thing with a 10" overhang is that you're not saving aisle space because stool legs splay wider than the seats for stability. Your real usable aisle space is from the stool feet over, regardless of whether they're covered by counter or not. On the plus side, maybe you might as well create an overhang generous enough to tuck them all the way under? It'd not only be more comfortable but look a lot better and be safer. Of course, it also means you need to choose and measure stools before making your decision. These tradeoffs are all very personal decisions, but, knowing how much even shallow storage holds, mine would be to look to the cabinets for the extra inches needed to make this work. I purchased ready-made Ikea 12" drawers for the top row of a line of 12" deep bottoms, with shelves below, so I would imagine drawer and sliding shelf mechanisms are available in a number of depths. If needed, I'd also plan storage for the Christmas dishes and the 3-element slow cooker used maybe twice a year, or whatever as needed, somewhere else in the house. This post was edited by rosie on Wed, Jun 5, 13 at 8:13

Sorry, my bad. With all the numbers in my head, I always mess up with the size.. It is indeed 60" vanity. It was a tough decision between 54" Bertch Bath Osage in Brindle vs 60" Bertch Marketplace Visage in Sable.I was ready to place the order for 54" when my husband pointed that the toilet will be 14" away from the toilet paper holder(which will be on the vanity side) and that might be an issue with kids. I did not wanted a stand alone holder plus needed someone to give me a push for the 6 drawers as well.:):) One question. My faucet is chrome but I took brushed nickel hardware for the vanity. For the above the vanity light, can I go brushed nickel as well? Will the chrome faucet look odd? I was reading in one of the posts, might be posted by linelle, that we can mix n match the colors as long as they r not different family. Thanks

I think the main risk to the "back of oven cabinet" location is that it is, of necessity, very close to the surface of the adjacent counter. That is, imagine you set down a pitcher of lemonade and it fell over -- I think that the flow of lemonade could easily get inside your switch fixture and short something out. For sure, even that small Legrand pop-out looks like it would fill all the space between the higher and lower counters, and that's where i see the risk. I would, at minimum, consult your electrician about code before installing it there (with a cut to your cabinet). Maybe, if it's just the low-voltage cabinet lights, it would be ok, but...