One thing now we're having a hard time deciding is if we want to have a soap dispenser hole drilled. The faucet kit came with one. I was reading another thread on the Kitchen Forums with a lot of valid pros and cons for having/not having one and using the NeverMT underneath.

All are beautiful. I just wish I had 17 kitchens to use all the stone I love. But, I would go with number 2. I love the gray/taupe colors personally, but it is more than that. Number one does nothing for the white cabinet -- it doesn't have the stark contrast of a soapstone or AB and doesn't have any white to play off of. The cabinets just look flat. On the island, #1 would blend with the color of the cabinet, brown on brown, versus the compliment that #2 would do for both cabinet colors. Number three is really blush - I would stay away from that - it doesn't do anything for either cabinet color. Again, you are picking from three beautiful natural stones, so you can't go wrong. Which one do you love first thing in the morning, which one will you love in 10 years, not always the same... :)

Some more info about the room and it's use. The floors are currently hardwood and we will refinish them to match the rest of the house in a dark brown. We have 2 kids, ages 5 and 10. There will be stools at the center island - probably mostly used for bfast and entertaining. There will also be a table in the kitchen so the island will not be the primary dining surface. The room flows into the family room which has a brick fireplace and white built in cabinetry. Our style is for the most part transitional. A little modern but comfortable and classic feeling. I love white marble. Always have. I know all about the risks of using it in a kitchen and am fine with them. I was pretty set with my plan for having white perimeter cabs with stained wood (in a medium grayish brown color) center island, all topped with delicious marble. But then I saw 2littlefishies and breezygirl's kitchens and fell in love with their walnut island tops. Hence my dilemma! Thanks again for any input!

We are thinking of going with Brown Antique granite on our chocolate stained island (which houses the main sink) and with a lighter granite perhaps Bianco Antico on the slightly off-white perimeter L-shaped cabinets (unfortunately I did not take a photo of this one). We are thinking of this since it would seem that we could go with light, almost white coloured tiles for the backsplash and not be worried about trying to match beige tiles with a beigey/creamy/busier granite if we were to go with that for the counters. Since we have medium red oak floors in the kitchen, we originally wanted gold/creamy granite everywhere (like Madura Gold, Golden Oak, etc), then we moved to a mix of browns, beiges, golds, etc., At that point we wanted a full granite backsplash so that we wouldn't have to worry about matching tiles. But our kitchen keeps getting delayed and we have been changing our tastes as time passes. We nixed the full granite backsplash because we thought that a busy granite would stand out too much. Then after finding nice gold-toned granite, our opinionated teens (15 and 17 yrs old)told us that it looked too old fashioned. And somehow, with each delay, we end up going to the granite stores and find that our own tastes change, or rather that we are wishy washy. Here is a photo of the light coloured cabinets in the showroom )they look very beigey due to the spotlights shining on them). Here in this picture, the showroom used a roughened granite called Golden Oak and tiles (that I do not like) for the backsplash. But below this picture is a photo of the dark island with the Brown Antique granite. Here are some of the gold granites we looked at: And here are some busier granites: But to tell you the truth, I think that I still like the last granite in the photos, but I won't know for sure until that darn kitchen is installed by the end of January.