I presume you're in zone 6? Daytime temps should be high enough to take it outdoors most days and leave out at night if temps don't fall below freezing. I place mine on a wagon so it's easier to bring in and take out. If the leaves should get frostbite, they should recover or grow back. But, if you do as suggested you'll have no problems.

cat mom- while this is true of the borgs in general - Kohler doesn't really participate in the value engineering that pervades say HD's door hardware and lock offerings. A Kohler K-16230-4 Margaux faucet is the same whether you get it from Ferguson, the local plumbing supply or Home Depot. Now, if you see an item that looks similar or exactly the same yet has a different product # then you can bet the farm the quality has been driven out of it by the suits at the borg. The really crappy thing is that the depot's price on these items isn't really that much less than the quality item elsewhere. Do a value analysis and you'll usually discover that the depot is raping you in the long run. Sometimes they have the name changed slightly. Baldwin has a setup like this for the borgs: first is the "special" site for the borgs, looks great till you open up one of these offshore beauties and find pot metal crap. second site is the real deal Baldwin that's made quality kit for 60 years. http://www.baldwinhardware.com/ Very hard for the casual observer to tell the difference. Here is a link that might be useful: baldwins fake site

If you aren't super-picky about the color, and want stone, I'd recommend taking a tour of your local granite yards and looking in their remnant bins or "bone yards". We got a remnant piece of marble (quartzite, actually) from a local stone fabricator. I am sure granite would be much cheaper... ours was a pricey exotic and I needed a special fancy multi-curved front profile, it was around $480. And it's really special :) Granite, with a sink cutout hole for undermount, and plain strait edges, would have been something like $350. If you use a drop-in sink it would be even cheaper.

JDS I totally get where you are coming from about HD. When I bought my current lights from them, I only did so because they were made by Cree and there were many users who posted here that they were a quality product and dimmed well with the Cree suggested dimmers. I actually wanted to use Cree again but just realized that HD no longer carries that brand. they use commercial electric and many reviews say they hum when dimmed. that's partly why I posted here asking for product recommendations. I can still get Cree elsewhere at a price similar to what HD lights cost. do you have any specific recommendations? with regard to the sink light, I guess it depends on how far you lean over and what lighting you have coming from the sides. I will have good under cabinet lights set towards the front. And I will make sure the recessed ceiling lights are on either side too, and not directly behind me. I'm not sure if there is enough space for 2 pendants in a style that will fit my space. I have about 46 Inches between the cabinets I think. Was thinking about a schoolhouse light.