My kitchen is similar, although instead of black countertops I've marble and our island (base) is black -- but it's still pretty close. We have a v. sheer grey-blue (BM Pearl River) on our walls. I think the "classic kitchen" scheme can handle any color: in my mind's eye I can easily see tangerine walls, taupe walls, chartreuse walls, celery walls, chocolate walls, cream walls, fuchsia walls, lavender walls -- I think anything you want and which will make you happy can be done beautifully with your white / black kitchen.

I am so kicking myself for not buying the Ballard's bench on sale before Christmas. The area has been bare for a couple of years, so a while longer won't hurt. Maybe I should just wait to see if they will restock. I just don't know how hard it would be to repaint the white for the $250 savings. While the white is beautiful, I'm sure it won't look as nice as the black in that space. I do like the antique reproduction from the Windsor Chair Co. too, so that's still an option. It looks like no matter what that I will end up paying more than I had hoped though. But, I've learned it's better to wait, save and get what I love than to buy something as a substitute that I'll be less satisfied with in the long run. Jan

That is hard to start with. Photoshop. I'm about done in for today, but will try to think of the easiest way to guide you through it and try to get back to you tomorrow, may have to wait until Monday. I posted a link for making selections. You might even be able to figure most of it out for yourself from that; further down is the path method (I don't know how to do that), skip that but look at the quick mask, I use that a lot, then skip the rest, more difficult subjects. I don't think I can talk you through quick mask; it's too involved to do it right unless you have a tutorial in front of you which I don't need now. You will have to try one of the selection methods. You can at least get started with some of what's on there. Work with your large image, you can resize it later. First do an image>duplicate and close your original. Convert it to grayscale using image>adjustments>desaturate. Do a file>save as, change the name, DO NOT SAVE IT OVER YOUR ORIGINAL OR YOU WILL LOSE IT, and save it to a different folder as .psd. I call my new folder Work File. When you are all done, you will want to keep your .psd files for awhile, maybe forever, but save your finished one as a .jpg/.jpeg at the end. Then open your colored image again, do an image>duplicate on that, close the original, and save it to the same file you put your grayscale into, giving it a different name and again saving in .psd format. That will be your working copy for selecting out the color. See if you can get that far. I didn't learn this overnight. It took a lot of struggling. Do you know how to post a photo here? Can you upload a small one? It would help to know just what you want to do here, otherwise I'm flying blind. Here is a link that might be useful: Making Selections

Hard no to white on the exterior. White on the interior depends what else you've got going in the rest of the house. In the one interior pic you posted, the wood looks great with the dark windows, to my eye white would cheapen that look. I would just stick with the plan for the black/black -- bite the cost bullet and be patient for what you want, otherwise you might regret it. I'm curious -- why would black limit the warranty?