We recently bought a GE CleanSteel dishwasher. The major difference is, you get the look of SS, but it won't leave fingerprints and has the ability to hold magnets. Cleanup is a breeze. I just wipe down with a damp cloth then dry with a lint-free micro cloth. Here is a link that might be useful: short description of CleanSteel

I have the Ruvati single bowl sink. Pros: It's big and holds a lot of dishes. It's sturdy and insulated well enough for me. I like the ledge for accessories. Cons: It has a flat bottom, so I chase food around the sink with the sprayer trying to get food particles down the drain. It has tight corners and hard to clean. The colander has wood, so I'm not sure how long that will last and it has large holes and is open on each end. That prevents you from using it for anything small, like straining spaghetti. I suppose you could use it for larger cut vegetables. I personally have it on the ledge and use it to set my liquid soap bottle, scrubbies and to hang my dishcloth to dry on the edge. I sometimes rinse my flatware and place in there prior to loading the dishwasher. I bought an after market, fine mesh colander that expands to fit the ledge and I store it in my cabinets. The grid for the bottom of the sink I thought was a good idea when I bought the sink. I hate it. The space between grids is too large to prevent anything from falling through. It gets food gunk on it, so I would be constantly scrubbing it and have to take it out to clean the sink. I don't use it anymore. If I could have a do-over, I would not purchase it again. You spend a lot of time at the sink, so allow enough in your budget to get a sink that will make using it less of a chore.

oh boy, my sympathies for your problem. I hope u exhausted every avenue with your contractor to correct your counter problem. i don't understand how they can say they are fine when the finishes are different? that alone is cause for a re-do!! now onto your problem as is: first i would not do a SS backsplash. way too much SS. next, glass-while nice i don't think it goes with your cab style since glass lean to the modern. i still think you can do tile but it must be very uniform. but if that off the table, then i would pick one color that is the same in the counters and use that for the b/s. u can use quartz or corian. corian has lots of solid colors and is very easy to clean. best case scenario, find sea pearl to match your counters and use that for the b/s.

I have a 70 year old cast iron skillet that has some serious pitting on the underside. And my 10 year old carbon steel wok shows some signs of deterioration, where the flames touch the metal. But overall, steel and iron are very sturdy. It takes an insane amount of abuse to destroy them. The boiling point of cooking oil is somewhere around 550°F, give or take. There is no way you can heat up an oil-filled pot above this temperature until all of the oil has evaporated. But that temperature is way above the smoke point, and you'd almost certainly set your kitchen on fire before you got anywhere close to boiling that oil. In other words, it is unlikely that an oil-filled wok would ever have been heated much above 400°F. And that's so far below the temperature when steel starts softening, it's not even in the same ballpark. So, no, I don't buy the story that the wok got damaged because it was heated with too much oil in it. And if this wasn't an old wok that had gradually worn out over time (hot flames do slowly oxidize the outside, after all) then the only explanation that I am willing to believe is a manufacturing fault. Of course, that can happen at any time. You don't really have much control over it. Just buy a different brand next time. I hear great things about the woks sold by http://www.wokshop.com/