This is an interesting question that has an easy answer but one many shy away from even more now what with so much available online. A few years back your man Lynford Christie found himself in a similar position although he had more acreage than you no doubt but no matter. What he did (this was told in detail in Gardens Illustrated) was to have a professional designer come out for a consultation. The imagined cost of this freaks people out and Lynford said that he didn't do much of what was suggested anyway but it kick started his imagination and that was worth the hundred quid. You don't say where you are but I'll bet that you have a garden centre nearby with someone who will come out for free and give you lots of ideas in the hope that you will buy from them and this might work just as well for you.

Kitchen porn!!! Hahahaha... it's my DH's new favorite term! "Still looking at your "kitchen porn"?... Close that computer and quit looking at that "kitchen porn"... I keep reminding him that our children have ears and BIG mouths!

Thanks to everyone for the help!! I think we will take sweeby's approach to our Saturday visit. I did find another place that is a yard AND fabricator in Dallas with the Chocolate Brown in a polished and leather finish. They are working me up a prelim price quote, before we make the hike to that side of town, since that will involve a different fabricator. We love the leather finish, and haven't seen many stones in that finish. I have inquired about the fabricator finishing it that way. It's possible, but I've been told way more costly. Here's a pic of a slab, when the nice lady worked there. This was early in our selection process when she showed us three different "brown" colored slabs. We really like the honed, antiqued, or leather finish. That's because I wanted soapstone at first, but I couldn't commit to a more delicate stone...and I love the brown. Another pic of the stone from a website. The Dallas yard that is working up a prelim quote has another interesting stone that I've yet to see. Also in Leather. I'm not sure how the price compares. I don't think we can splurge for even more expensive than the Chocolate Brown Leather.Syrah Leather Link

I think the point of the "ceramic" vs. "porcelain" thing is that it's the firing, glazing, etc., that really affect how they'll work for you, far more than how ferrous the clay is. Some of it's marketing and some of it's historical. Europeans, hundreds of years ago, were entranced by translucent Chinese porcelains (dishes), which were very white, very thin, and very strong. That's where "porcelain" initially got its cache. Check Wikipedia for an easy to understand article about porcelain. Ceramic covers a huge breadth of materials of highly variable characteristics, and the definition of the word is pretty useless for this purpose. Some non-porcelain ceramic tiles have similar properties to porcelain. Some don't. But building materials usually have ratings, and you can almost always get a free or nominally priced sample tile to torture at your leisure. :)