No problem. It won't be on the countertop as there is no countertop behind the stove. The range came with a metal shelf/bracket thingy and that's what's behind it right now. Here's a pic: From Behind the Stove We need to do something with this spot, too but are unsure what. We had the counters installed long before we got the stove and the two are not a perfect fit due to the front control panel having a lip. But that's another story. That's the back left corner. You can see the wall, the granite, the edge of the range and the black metal strip. The granite is 2 cm if that makes a difference. Here is a link that might be useful: lots of kitchen pics here

Thanks! The second one is the one I fell in love with at the store with the "attitude", and found it on line. It's natural stone and will have variations, but always thought it beautiful. Samples I ordered are in, will post another picture later.

I really like having our island one level and making it two level to avoid a seam wouldn't have been an acceptable compromise to me. Perhaps because I'm short, I find it more comfortable to sit at a counter height island and I would feel too cut-off from seeing the rest of the room by a raised bar while cooking. Also, I'm not sure I understand your layout, but I think you said that the seating area was the 72" side (the one that doesn't connect to the right angle corner. If you made it raised, it seems like you could just be making the problem of reaching the center harder. It would take a long reach to reach the lower counter from the side with the raised counter so whatever was lower would have to be cleaned from the lower edges. I'm also not clear on where the cabinets are under the island. Depending on what cabinets you ordered, perhaps they could be arranged in a different configuration if you wanted. I'm not saying that's what you should do but if it is what you wanted to do, changing your mind now doesn't necessarily mean that the cabinets would have to be wasted. When we thought we couldn't get large enough slabs of the granite we wanted to do our island with one, we did decide it would be fine with a seam. A good fabricator can do excellent seams. Usually the granite slabs are book matched. Granite slabs are successive slices of a block of granite. "Book matched" means they alternate which side of the granite they polish so that for two successive slabs, the sides that touched each other in the block were polished. Therefore the grain on one will be an almost perfect mirror image of the grain on the other. They can layout the pieces for each side of the seam on the two slabs so that there is a grain match at the seam. If they can do a tight seam, it can almost disappear and the result can look very good. I'm glad that we were able to find big enough slabs to not need a seam. But the seam with book matched slabs would have been my second choice.

I will say that in our insurance fight the insurance only wanted to pay for the portion of the floor that was damaged (about 40 sq ft). Prior to filing a claim I spoke with several companies about piecing new floor into the old floor. Because it was natural maple and 8 years old they all said there was no way that it would match due to the wood ambering over time (I knew this before calling, but I wanted ammunition). Well, wouldn't you know that is what the adjuster started in with. After showing him my full replacement policy (and where it says it has to be put back together like it was) he said he would have to get back to me. 3 hours later he called me back and said he talked to his manager and they would be replacing the entire floor (and removing and reinstalling the cabinets so the floor would run under it like it was currently). I'll never not have a policy that has replacement cost. Having a countertop that doesn't fit like it should wouldn't meet my standards, and I would fight that fight. However, I probably would have had to let them at least try to make the old granite work. Hopefully it all works out for you in the end. On another note, though. Someone mentioned buying new material and letting the insurance pay for the install. We basically did that. We took the money from the removal and reinstallation of the old cabinets and put it towards the cost of new cabinets and installing wood throughout the first level except the bedrooms/bathrooms (about 600sq ft additional wood). We're basically getting a 35k remodel for 15k of our own money. This might be the time to put some of your own money into it.