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.

I noticed that both of you have posted photos of your Jeffrey Court Pietra Opus Fire and Ice Quartz backsplashes. I am thinking of using this in my kitchen too and I was hoping you could answer the following questions: What color grout did you use? Can you give me a ballpark figure as to what to expect to pay per square foot? Is it too difficult to DIY? Or will I need a pro? Does it need to be sealed? How difficult is it to keep clean? Any other comments or responses appreciated!

Mine came back after I did a search for a thread in kitchens. No threads from other forums showed up. Once I had found the thread I was looking for and clicked back it still showed the old GW kitchen URL. I copied it, pasted the link in my bar above. Whenever Houzz redirects me to their awful URL, I get back by clicking on my link. So far that has worked every time. Touch wood, and good luck! http://www.gardenweb.com/gardenweb/kitchbath

While I will admit that some do seem have difficulties navigating or posting (I think most of that is due to a less than ideally compatible device or browser) I do not find the new format any more difficult to work with or use or navigate than it was before. Different, yes.........but no less user friendly (in many ways it is more user-friendly). And I think some are just a lot more resistant to change than others :-) As an old time GW user (here since almost from the start in the late 90s with Spike), the site has gone through a lot of changes over the years and with different ownership, much good and some not so good. It took me just a couple of days to become comfy with the new format and I have no issues with it now. My primary complaint is with cross posting. While it is NOT a requirement, many seem to think it is so you get threads posted to 3 completely unrelated forums. And those new folks entering directly from the Houzz side of the platform with gardening questions do not realize there are several dozens of gardening forums and just post in the Gardens or Landscape Design forum (the only GW forum that shows up in the Houzz topics listing as well as GW) and I find that very irritating. The LD forum is frequently innundated with completely inappropriate questions!! And I don't find it to be any less of a "community" than it was before. Depending on what forums one frequents, all the same old regular posters are present for the most part with the same friendly interchange and bantering. 11otis, if you scroll up to the start of this thread, you will find that it is posted to the Soils, Compost and Mulch forum in addition to a couple of others. Click on that forum title and it will take you directly to ALL the threads on that forum. Really couldn't be much easier............. :-)