Ours is from M. Teix (we are local to one of their branches) and yes, it is that soft. (We have Barroca.) It depends largely on the variety (and sometimes even on the slab within the variety) but I would definitely not categorize it as "semi-bulletproof." I have a love/hate relationship with ours, which has been in three years. If you want something that will hold up to a lot, I would look to the harder varieties--wish we had gone that route (but at the time, the harder stones were all green-toned, and we wanted the classic charcoal). But color-wise, we also have Acadia White cabinets, which is a very creamy/rosy white, along with a stretch of beech counter finished in a warm cherry-like tone, and I think it's a lovely match there.

Well every seller and flipper anywhere near me paints cabinets white..:) or so it seems And sometimes makes no sense whatsoever, given architecture, style, other materials..irritating. Don't get me wrong..i would never pass on the house I love because of that..even if they would be completely wrong for the space (in my place they were completely wrong-color wise, style-wise, everything.. yet we still bought the house lol. well, eighty percent of interior finishes was wrong for the house so..) things like that -I don't see them as making or breaking the deal. Location, bones, layout, amount of rooms you need to accommodate your family-yes. Well price of course. As much as I loved several houses-they were too small, or were not in a neighborhood that'd work for us, or were simply too expensive So no, I wouldn't pass on a house because of the cabinets, whatever color they would be..and especially if they were right for the space:) I like grays but not cold grays for example. And I prefer warm whites to bright whites. Yet when it makes allover sense, it's easier to look past it, and make do, for a time being, or maybe for years even. And in some cases-you look past it even if it doesn't make any sense. But it's better if it does. It's rarely a question of one color..even though colors do have huge influence over us. it's a question of how everything comes together. Same as with everything. Take a face you like-many times, a nose could be better, and teeth could be straighter, and whatnot. Yet you don't look at it separately...you do of course, but you don't care because it's more than just the sum of elements. PS I read the funniest description in one listing recently. It went: "This house is classic and timeless, yet trendy and current". It looks like they've read all the blogosphere on the subject of design and decor, and decided to construct that sentence, so as not to miss anything...))))

We had lots of inspiration pictures from Houzz, but these 3 pictures from the same house helped to guide us the best. This is the living room of the Inspiration House. You can see there are warm tones especially with the rocked fireplace, wood floors, and furniture, but also there's some white cabientry and trim, and light paint colors to lighten things up. We didn't care for the yellow accents and chose rusty orange and blue for our accents. This is the other side of the same house. You can see that the sectional sofa is a deep mushroom color rather than just brown. You can see the dining room has a brown table and a black lighting fixture. Then you can see a white kitchen beyond. This is the kitchen in the same house. This kitchen has whiter counters than what we chose. But it is similar with white cabinets, stainless appliances, dark counter stools, dark metal on the pendants. It's fancier and bigger than ours. No room for an island in ours, we lowered the bar height penninsula and made it a flat penninsula with the Taj Mahal Quartzite. This is the color palette we used in my Dad's remodel. We were totally in charge of this remodel, so I put together this board for my Dad so he could see/approve what we were planning. Here is what I showed him: We haven't purchased the Pottery Barn Swivel barrel chair yet and will probably go darker than the leather sample shown here. It can be done. You just might have to carefully consider your paint and fabric/rug choices to make it all come together. Here is the reveal I posted after we finished the project. At the time of this posting a lot of the art was not back up yet, so it looks a little bare. My user name has changed because my email changed and then DD was setting up ideabooks for herself and changed my name for some unknown reason and I never changed it back. https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5647113/reveal-of-whole-house-remodel#n=11 Good luck!

This is the name and manufacturer of the countertop. https://www.lghausysusa.com/viatera/color/view.do?pid=2020011011194700708 I honestly hadn't thought of replicating the same wood as the entrance for the fireplace floor but could certainly consider it. I'm not sure that we would be able to find the same wood color and plank size now 15 years later which is the same concern we would have with adding the wood floor to the kitchen. If we chose wood, we would wait until we could replace both the kitchen and the entry floors at the same time. One question regarding the wood floor option for the kitchen - the kitchen also connects directly to our door from the garage, laundry room, and a 1/2 bath so they currently all have the same tile flooring. I have some reservations about durability for a wood floor in a laundry room and garage entrance that has potential for water on the floor. The kitchen also has doors to go to our deck and backyard which the kids and dog are constantly coming in and out of also bringing in dirt and wet feet/shoes. Obviously we use rugs in these places but we live in a climate with snow and ice and winter is just messy. Is that a legitimate concern or am I just underestimating the functionality of wood? I would say our current wood floor must be a softer wood because we have some scratches on it that are very frustrating considering that area of our house isn't really very high traffic use. The short answer as to why we are looking at changing the fireplace because the surround now is the same tile as the kitchen floor. We had picked a ledger stone for there at time of construction but the installer couldn't get the stone to lay right (at that time it was larger stones) and because of construction timelines we eventually just had to put that tile around it. I love my mantle but I have never loved the tile surround. The long answer is a very frustrating and complicated story that I won't bore you with here but in general the fireplace has never worked properly and if we want an actual functional fireplace our choices right now are to take out and repair the current one or take out and replace it. Either option requires removal of the tile surround.