No problem, no offense. I understand. The sample we got from Architectural Ceramics is only 3 rows, so harder to get a good idea of what it will really look like. My biggest question is about the glass. On the black backer board that the sample is mounted on, it is VERY iridescent, showing all of the rainbow colors you expect in iridized glass. But the photos don't show that, and I wonder if that's because they are mounted on white sheet rock with white mortar (not the black board). In real life, do you get the rainbow hues (like a soap bubble), or is it just more reflective like what you see in your photos. Also, did you replace any of the glass tiles with a darker amber (as I know others on the forum have)? If so, where did you get them? Thanks for your help.

I just installed an Ikea kitchen a little over a week ago (still finishing filler & trim), so I'll throw in my 2 cents. But I would second kailuamom's suggestion to check out the Ikea Fans website. It seems to get a little less traffic than here, but there are lots of professional installers and experienced folks there with Ikea-specific wisdom on those boards. As far as your questions� 1) My ceilings are nominally 8 ft, but in reality they are anywhere from 94-95 inches. We wanted to be able to put up crown molding on top with facia or face molding below, to help disguise the non-levelness of the ceiling, so that requires something in the realm of 4-6 inches. Including that plus the below-cabinet molding, there was no way the 39" upper would work. By my calculations, we could only have done the 39" with molding on top if we used very short molding. We went with a 30" instead. I felt that more molding and a bit of extra under-cabinet space would look and feel better than the larger cabinet squished in there. 3) (no #2? lol) I am positive I've seen this modification discussed on Ikea Fans. 4) My understanding is that miter joints (the diagonal seam you describe) are not a good choice for butcher block. I know people sometimes do it, but as it was explained to me, the miter approach can cause trouble down the line because of the way the wood will expand and contract with temperature and humidity. Butt joints are apparently the way to go. I have a peninsula in my kitchen, too, and at one point considered doing as you describe with the 26" wide piece along the wall and the wider counter for the rest of the peninsula. However, I decided that it was important to me to have peninsula be one seamless block, and tweaked our layout so that it worked to use the 73X39 counter. 5) I believe that as a general rule, your hood needs to be the same width or larger than your cooktop/range to be effective. So functionally, going with a 36" would not be good. In terms of appearance, personally, I am certain that I would not like it. A too-small hood just looks wrong to me. And the taller cabinets you have next to the 36" hood cabinet in your planner photos would probably be a fire hazard since you'd have some stove right below them. 6) Ikea doesn't sell specific filler pieces. You get some cover panels or toe-kick (they call it plinth) and cut that to whatever size you need. Where you need filler is wherever you have a gap between cabinets or between cabinet and wall that you want to fill in. From your pictures, it looks to me like you might need filler between the drawers to the right of the sink and the wall, and to the right of the upper above that. I don't know that you need anything between sink and dishwasher. The domsjo sink rests on the countertop, which would rest on the side edge of the sink cabinet. This is another question to search over at Ikea Fans, because there have definitely been lots of threads about this there.

I have Carlisle eastern pine floors that were installed by DH over a period of a few weeks. We laid heavy construction type paper down on all of the floors between install and staining. We didn't do this at first and some of the boards that were first installed in the main walkway got verrrry dirty. It was so difficult to clean them that I ended up having to sand those boards before staining. I wiped all the boards with mineral spirits before conditioning and staining. The floors are gorgeous but they're very soft and my heels do make slight dents in the wood (try not to wear heels in the house but when I'm rushing around getting ready for work in the morning it happens). We knew this but chose pine anyway because DH really wanted the Carlisle signature floor and 20" width boards. I don't think this width was available in the harder woods - at least not at our price point.

Debbie, Danielle and Venice, thank you for your kind comments. I'm thrilled that my kitchen is an inspiration to someone, and was remiss in not mentioning my two main inspiration kitchens: those of cat_mom (wouldn't have tried for a more contemporary feel had I not fallen in love with the clean lines of her kitchen) and Jodi_in_socal, the original GW trendsetter for the Fire and Ice backsplash. But truly, there are so many beautiful kitchens on this forum and so many helpful people that I had a wealth of inspiration and information, for which I am extremely thankful.