We had ours done by the local sheet metal fabrication place...The same guy who did our HVAC. $17/sq ft. They've been in for about a week and the rest of the kitchen isn't done, so I can't share much about experience. There was a recent thread about them with testimonials and photos. I've linked it below. Here is a link that might be useful: thread on stainless counters

Your plywood to stainless steel? PL Premium. I might spread it out with some kind of disposable notched trowel. Clamp or weight the sink to the wood. Leave it for a good 24 hours to set up. Wear disposable gloves and work on a protected surface. The stuff doesn't not come off easily once cured and only with mineral spirits before that.

Our sink was an off-the-shelf, 18 gauge undermount sink. Our fabricator welded it into the countertop, and you really can't tell that they were ever separate. No seams, nice clean lines. You can judge for yourself! It's true that you can't integrate just any sink. It has to be a certain thickness and quality in order to weld it onto the countertop, and the sink manufacturers' specs don't necessarily tell the whole story. The sink may have been made out of 18 or 16 gauge steel, but after it's stamped and stretched into shape, it may no longer be that thick. When we first met up with our fabricator, he was complaining about having just welded a Franke sink into a countertop, because there was so little material to work with, the sink having been thinned out quite a bit during manufacture. The sink we ultimately went with happened to be in the fabricator's shop already, so we bought it off him, and he knew he could weld it.

One way of being warm is by using warm colors. Sounds obvious, but the difference can be really striking. You didn't say what color the glass tile backsplash will be. Or what color you were thinking of for the range. Bluestar number 8023 and 8004 are very warm without being primary, and most of the colors under 5000 are also warm. If you coordinate your backsplash tiles with one of them, the kitchen can't help but have a warm feeling, even if you painted the cabinets ice blue :) On the other hand, icy, wintry colors are going to give you that cold look that you don't want, so stay away from pale blues and purples, greys, browns and blacks. You can also warm up the room with bright, cozy accents, in warm colors, like a cookie jar, fun clock, or bright colored small appliances. The trick to making it not look industrial is first to have a few things out, rather than all put away like you would in a sterile environment, and then to be sure the things you do display are broken up in color, rather than monotone. I chose to post the items below because they show the principle of broken up color. Whatever your taste is you can do this, except if it's "clean, industrial", since that's what you're trying to get away from. Basically a "warm" look is opposite to a "clean" look.