Oh yeah!!! Any darn where, any motif, color scheme, counters, etc. Just make sure you have enough clearance underneath. And ventilation too, if you are a serious cook. The website, www.theinductionsite.com was a great resource for me when choosing. The top is black, many trims are stainless, depending on which brand you choose. I've used electric coils, gas, and induction. My heart sings joyously when I cook on induction. or it could be the food joyously singing cooking on a respectful and responsive cooking miracle :)

Sure, a soft gray, like pebble, would look fine with the cooktop, and would be less stark and edgy than a pure white. You'd just have to choose very carefully to make it work with the floor and cabinets. Both the cherry and the cork are very warm colors. That is, they have a lot of red undertones. Both Pebble and Rosemary look like they trend that way, but I'm not familiar enough with them IRL to say for sure. Most grays tend to be on the blue side, which could look really good and contrasty, but it could also look mismatched and sad if it were the wrong shade. The other problem here is contrast. Natural cherry is supposed to darken over time. There's a good texture contrast with the eco-cork, so they won't totally run together, but I don't think another medium tone is going to look good. The major surfaces in a kitchen are floors and counters (horizontal), cabinets and walls (vertical), plus interruptions of appliances, sinks and other fixtures. People have a tendency to prefer medium toned colors if asked to just choose one. If most of your major surfaces have them, however, and the hue changes are subtle (which they are in the slew of neutrals that includes gray counters), then it all starts to look very blah, and muddy (muddy being what happens at the end of the fingerpainting when you can't tell the blue, yellow and red apart anymore). The white whites and raven are at the extreme points on the contrast scale, and you'll get the best contrast with the white. In fact, that's where we started with the induction contrasting with the counters. Especially in a small room, white is a better option than dark. It reflects more light and makes the room look more open and airy than closed and dim. Maybe your best bet would be to get one of the whites for the counter and the Electrolux white induction cooktop? I worry about that some because matching whites is hard, and if you get a lot of direct sun (UV) on your counters, they will probably yellow somewhat over many years (it's the resin binder that does that). Viking has a white one with a stainless frame. It's kind of weird looking. The stainless would separate the two whites and make any color difference less noticeable. One reason the mottled colors soften the look is that they bring non-linear shapes (spots) into the mix. Another reason is that the spots have varied colors making the whole surface less aggressively one thing. Hm... Just found a different chart, where Caesarstone lists colors in a group called "soft gray". I had thought that you meant that in general. I'm too tired to rewrite this. So, yes, Arctic Salt is dramatic and would work, and Cinder, if it's the right color IRL, should do what you want if you like the less spotty look. I think Haze is too warm, leading to the lack of contrast problem, but that's also something to check with real life samples, in sunlight if possible. Sorry for rambling. I hope the explanation is helpful.

Yes, I have first hand experience doing this for a couple different clients. My advice would be not to flush mount it. Couple of reasons for this: -To flush mount, your fabricator will have to route the counter-top to the exact size of the Miele cooktop frame. For some fabricators, this is outside their abilities and can result in a rough cut and force you to buy another slab of quartz. -For the fabricators that can do this, depending upon his skill level, this will leave a 1/16-1/8" gap around all sides, perfect place for food and grease to get caught in, and getting it cleaned becomes very difficult indeed. -Another downside is that down the road, when Miele discontinues that cooktop (and this is inevitable), while they will certainly offer another cooktop of the same size, the actual frame and housing is highly unlikely to line up with your already routed counter-top, leading to difficult and expensive options should the cooktop need replacing. For these reasons, I find the risk of headaches far outweighs the aesthetic reward. The good news is that Miele's cooktops have some of the slimmest profiles on the market, such that even when installed normally, they look quite sleek indeed. Hope that helps, Anthony Appliance Buyer's Guide

I am in the process of making an induction cooktop purchase decision, and was surprised to note the venting requirement when I reviewed the on-line installation manual. I found this posting as part of trying to make sense of the requirement. I like the creative idea from Sativa McGee Designs. However, unlike Sativa McGee Designs, my reading of the installation manual is not that having the vent space is a mere "suggestion." Rather, the directive is proceeded by a capitalized and bolded "IMPORTANT" and is grammatically written in the imperative as follows: "IMPORTANT: For proper ventilation, provide a vent of 3/16” (5mm) under the countertop, in the front of the cabinet. The ventilation opening is to extend the full length of the cooktop cutout.” I would be interested in knowing of any other novel approaches to meeting the requirement. I also plan to contact Kitchenaid for their input.