Your space is beautiful and your built in cabinets lovely. But I am having a hard time with the white of the windows next to the stained cabinets. I think you either need to go one way or the other. Either have window treatments with color and/or wooden or bamboo blinds or paint the built in window seat and cabinets white to tie it all together. I would hesitate to paint since it matches your existing kitchen cabinets, but the contrast for me is too much. Love the idea of the black wrought iron plate rack, and I would love to see your shelves just be useable space. Put your cookbooks there, place some special momentos, maybe a plant, maybe some photos. Make it your own. As long as you have a few pieces tie in with your color scheme, it will all work. Would love to see a colorful cushion for the bench and pillows. JMO. Wonderful kitchen. I'm envious.

I don't have an island yet but I love this one.

When I was trying before the "Search" box at the top of the page was the Houzz search box. Now I have Search in GardenWeb. I'm not sure how it happened.

Hi Janelle, It looks like a chalk paint (such as Annie Sloan) that has been applied and then sanded in the grooves to allow the paint underneath to show through. Hope this helps!