Marcy96, Love your space. Beautiful! ~boxer Hi Maryb2010, When I first started thinking about my reno. I had a few specific ideas, after 4 months those ideas changed. The more I am around kitchens, looking for my own planning, helping others, ides on GW... the more I see things I love and those ideas I had when I started have faded or changed. One way to start is to figure out your "Do or Die" list. What do you love? And it does not matter who else loves it but you and your DH of course. And from there plan your space. The Sweeby test is a great tool to help you figure out what your "Do or Die" is. It sounds like you love white, cottagey and that is a super start. And a search through FKB (Finished Kitchens Blog) on GW will help with seeing what others have done. FKB can give you ideas and help those creative juices spark. Here are a few white cottage kitchens with pale counters. And tumble stone marble bs are great. Get what you love! ~boxer

Decorating trends are not like clothes fashion. It takes a longer time cycle, like 20 years. Stainless appliances were the "hot" thing many decades ago, then yes, they fell out of fashion. Everything does, after a long while - the eye simply gets tired. Especially these days, when everybody and their mothers can get photos of their remodeled kitchens up on the Web for millions to critique. I admire a nice piece of granite, or onyx, or even Cheng's fad-creating concrete countertops. Very pretty stuff. But just like rooster prints all over the kitchen, seeing it a few times is okay. You just don't want to see it in EVERY kitchen, that's all. Natural stone has the advantage of unpredictability. No single installation is going to look quite like someone else's install, even if it's the same stone. So the eye doesn't tire of it quite so fast...but it does happen. Specifically, although the first few dozen tumbled marble backsplashes I saw were (and are) nice, now it's hard to tell them apart. Everybody's got a special design arched over their cooktop/range, maybe a horizontal border, maybe not. Same old, same old. It's going to be the total package - counters, floors, cabinets, appliances - that make it possibly impressive, perhaps lasting design. None of us will know until we look at it in 20 years and say either "Blech!" or "Yeah, still looks good!" Still, this is a great time to be a consumer - the variety of what is available to us, within affordability, is absolutely amazing.

Mayflowers, thank you so very much for taking the time to give me you insight! I've read the paint discussion thread, however, I will need to reread it several times before I can "get it". A lot of it flew so high over my head that I felt dizzy, lol. You are dead on in some of your comments. I would absolutely LOVE to get new granite, but if I even look like I'm about to suggest it, I'd be dead on the spot from the daggers shooting from my husband's eyes!! You have to understand that when he finally agreed to getting granite in the first place, it was like winning the lottery for me!! We are by no means wealthy people, and we way over shot our budget! My husband is, not what you would call a tight-wad, but is very very conservative with money. He does, though, love a "good deal" and will buy 3-4 of something that is on sale whether we need it or not. Drives me nuts. It's killing him to paint the cabinets because we paid so much for them and he tells every paint/tile sales people so..."We paid a lot of money to get natural maple, now she wants to PAINT them"..."coulda save a lot of money", I really do understand where he's coming from, the remodel was supposed to be our last hurrah. I'm sorry for the rant, just needed a little venting because this whole thing is becoming so stressful. I guess I'll get some MORE paint samples. I've only been looking at paint from Lowe's, Home Depot and Kelly Moore. Haven't seen much discussion of their paint colors, seems like everyone is on the BM banwagon. I just figured that their's was too expensive. I've heard people say that they have a place like Home Depot mix up BM paint for them (?) how do they do that? Just take a paint chip/strip of BM and ask for that color? Can you do that with any brand? Once again, thank you for your help.

If you have never installed tile, this is not the way to start. First, it's highly visible in your kitchen. Second, it's marble which is more difficult to cut than ceramic. Third, it's TINY pieces, which, if you have to cut them, are impossible to hold in a wet saw. Fourth, you will be cutting HUNDREDS of these tiny pieces, to fit around objects and at edges. Fifth, with such a tight placing on the mesh, ANY deviation of fitting between sheets will result in very visible zipper lines from a distance, ruining the look. I am an advanced DIY with a lot of tile projects, and I would not touch this installation (extremely tedious to get the cuts correct, and the chances in a $15 per square foot mesh-ed tile are that they are laid on the mesh not perfectly and zipper lines will result between sheets - NOTHING you can do if they are laid on the mesh other than perfectly in a tight fit matrix like this). You are likely to end up with zipper lines. I will say it's a gorgeous look - I love it! You could possibly handle the 3x6 tiles with a proper wet saw and a ton of tile spacers if you are very skilled at learning new craft in general and working with tools. But marble tile in general is not a good first learning project in a highly visible location! And TINY strip mosaic pieces are about the most tedious and difficult to cut accurately. Without accurate cuts, the install will look rough and awful on a refined look like this, in your kitchen. I'm just trying to save you potential agony and cost!