Since it's the largest piece in the room, I think you should start with your sofa and work from there. What colors are available without doing a custom job? Maybe you can find a color that's in your painting or map. Bring home some decent size fabric samples and we can help you better. After you get the sofa squared away, I'd start looking at laminate. I think it would look nice if you had all those pieces under the laminate uniform in color so it seems less broken up and busy. I can't tell if they're stained or painted on my monitor. You have a lot going on around the room with your bookcases so I think I would go with something solid or wood grain for the counter tops. When you start to look at laminate, go to several places because when I was looking, I found that no one store stocked all the samples available in the lines of say, Formica and Wilson Art. If you call the companies once you've narrowed down your selection, they'll send you larger samples than those little pieces at the stores. There are others here more knowledgeable about window treatment options than I am ,so I won't go there.

brody_miasmom, per the Ikea cabs, I went and did another look at Ikea cabinets last night, just to keep all my options open :-) Yesterday afternoon I spoke with a realtor and she was along the same lines as you; that Ikea cabs are just fine but I should put in granite. I also went and looked at counter depth fridges in stainless and now I am in full irate mode over the price of them. SHEESH. I called my sister ranting and she assured me that black would be OK too...but really, if the masses love stainless, I should put those in. I am flip flopping dependent on if I've just seen a price tag or not, LOL. igloochic, OK, I cannot wrap my head around this. WHY is Silestone priced in different grades? Isn't it just resin and filler? I can see granite priced differently based on rarity or quarry costs...but Silestone is...all...the...same. I don't get this. It's like they have a lower range in unexciting colors just so they can charge you more for the prettier stuff. I mean, really, do the little flecks of mica and pigment really warrant that much more?? Can you tell I'm annoyed?? Do you by any chance have a pic of the granite that looks like the sliced river rock? I'd love to see what that looks like. lishaana , congratulations on the quick sale! That is awesome. Your updates look great. natal, do you have recessed lights over the countertops, and if so, does the glare bother you? You are right, never too much light! Of course I am afraid I will put in too many and the ceiling will look like swiss cheese. You look like you have a nice big kitchen -- lucky! :-) bigdoglover, what is "boring dinkety dinkety dink small builder granite with dull bullnose edge"? I mean, what's the name of it? I'll try to avoid it, LOL. bbstx, indeed, there was no backsplash when we bought the house...just a laminate edge and then paint. It was hard to clean, that's for sure. I lost track of how many times I simmered tomato sauce too hard and had little spurts all over the wall by the stove :-) Oops. I will probably put in a backsplash if I can find the right tile at the right price. mnzinnia, thank you neighbor for your help! Are you currently living in EP? I made a note of the places you said to visit. The outlet place sounds like a must-see. And I hope you find your perfect house soon :-) crazyhouse6, another neighbor! I totally agree about the ugly soffit...and you know what, the edges of the soffit that weren't touched by cabinets are POPCORNED. Yes. I coudn't make this stuff up, it's too horrifying. OK you've given me the opportunity for a small rant. I honestly don't know why granite is necessary to sell. I can certainly see why someone would put in granite if that's what they love, but then they will put in the granite of their choice, not live with the lower grade or ugly-to-them color that a seller chose simply for resale. It's so personal. On this thread several granite owners mentioned picking out their specific slabs, it's like picking out artwork, no? Wound't someone who loves granite much rather rip out a laminate counter than a granite that is new, functional, yet not to their taste? I dunno, that's how I see it, but I will put in granite cuz that's what peeps like. Personally I find it too hard. I would pick either butcherblock or stainless steel. So...if I were looking for a house, I would MUCH rather find one with cheap laminate and rip that out to put in my taste in counters, rather than rip out granite that someone thought made the place look upscale. Oh well. Granite it is. Granite for all! The puttig-back-together starts today with Measuring-Guy-Joe showing up at 3:30pm. Yay! supercat, your kitchen looks bright and open, I love that! Whatever you did worked, because it looks very nice. BTW, how do you like your corner sink? Joanna

jb- thanks for the vote of confidence. I am swimming without waterwings, tightroping without a net, flying without a parachute.......basically, "winging it" with lots of reading here, of course! And I'll post pics along the way! That makes it more fun, anyway. Brittu- yep, all the light ones got eliminated. I did not expect that. teedup- I'm hoping that in the end, I'll be looking at a total bill of about 20K, so the idea of even 50K sounds scary to me! I'm really happy with that number given that we went to bare studs and built everything back in again, but that also is with me doing serious bargain hunting, lots of DIY, and getting what I think would be $40-50K custom cabinets for about 5-6K.....an unusual family benefit! :) hedygs- the volga blue has more slate/green in it than you'd at first think...that is why the walls ended up a bit green. I guess I should have waited to paint till I decided on a floor, but were doing everything a bit backwards since the cabinets are delayed. I had to do something.....so I painted, and matched the paint to the cabs and the granite, and hoped for the best. Impatience may not pay off this time. janwad- nice and clean looking! very appealing. How do you like your ladylux? I do think that V. Slate is my favorite right now, but it is also the most expensive. That is fine, if it is perfect, but I'm going to wait to make sure that there are not problems with my granite before I commit to a floor....I can just see my slabs getting broken, and having to chose something new. Not pessimistic, just realistic.

I am not really sure about the answer to your question. You can laminate wood onto anything really, lamination has several purposes (1) to stabilize hygroscopic wood expansion, (2) to lower costs and (3) to increase the board footage of particularly appealing wood pieces. When we talk about durability and quality of laminated products we are really talking about 1 and 2. Wood is hygroscopic so it expands and contracts with changes in humidity. Specifically the grain will swell, but they will not lengthen. So wood boards get wider but not longer. Laminates such as plywood stabilize the wood by making mechanically bonding boards to other boards facing different directions, as the grains attempt to swell in width the mechanical bond to other layers facing different inhibit the swelling. So what gives laminates stability is actually the mechanical bond of glue. So when talking about the quality of various laminates, the glue rather than the material is more important. I have had plywood start delaminating before it was even cut. I have no specific knowledge of this product but one of the advantages of wood on wood bonds (or any wood based materials) is how well they accept adhesion. I am not so sure you can achieve a great mechanical bond between wood and pvc. Now if they could do some kind of hydrosonic weld between pvc and wood it would work well, but pvc is much more difficult to glue than wood. Having said all of this, it really doesn't matter. The cabinets that I just replaced were solid wood and built in 1908. They were in perfect shape but really a kitchen built in 1908 no longer met our needs. Solid wood will last much longer than your lifetime when properly cared for, the same goes for quality laminates. I am not sure how much more round we can make that wheel. In the end, finding a material that will last two lifetimes is probably not worth the effort. Note: most of the pvc products are not laminates, they are solid pvc that are painted to look like wood. Not really a fan of those but whatever floats your boat.