What do you mean by "a darker, browner wood" for the floors? Do you mean the camera didn't pick up the color of the floors accurately? Or that you are going to re-stain the floors? Will the cabinets remain unchanged? What I recommend you do is get a sample of flooring that matches the color you have in mind, or else get a block of wood and stain it that color. Remove one of the smaller cabinet doors and take that with your floor sample to a stone yard and set them against various rocks until you find the one that speaks to you. That's a great looking kitchen, by the way. (Be sure and check out the kitchen forums here, too. We love pics, btw. :-))

One mistake you are making in your thinking is a common one - that all granites are lumped together in one group. There are thousands of granites. Some are carefree and will not stain and can take all kitchen tasks for years and years without showing anything. In the other extreme are granites that are more stain-prone, require sealing every few months and can be etched and/or stained. My granite counters are more than 10 years old. They have not been sealed. I do not baby them, and have spilled things like wine and tomato juice on them while cooking. They look like the day they were installed. I have never in all this time grown tired of their natural beauty. Go to a stoneyard, and ask to see granites that have "low absorption rates", i.e. they are dense, and therefore won't stain. If you see a granite you like, and can't find information on its durability, get the name, and also take a photo, and post on this forum. Likely someone will have information on it.

Right, I've gone back and looked again at soapstone, and I now remember why I didn't give it much of a second glance: 1) we need a 3m slab or else need to have seams, and it doesn't come in pieces that big, and 2) it's too soft for us. We have 3 young children and an L-shaped overhang off of our island, which is a recipe for breakages with that particular material I think. I can just see someone accidentally slamming something down on the overhang bit or trying to swing on it or something and cracking off a section... Our family is hard on kitchen surfaces and I need something that's going to withstand a beating. It's also why we haven't gone with the single-sheet ceramic worktop (which I quite liked the look of as they're so thin and elegant and incredibly durable, but too thin for that overhang). Would rather not have multiple materials/heights there on the island (so, no L-shaped wood overhang on one corner, for example) as I find it too fussy and prefer to have one large big clean workspace for things like baking, making pizza, etc with the children. I absolutely love the kitchen of a friend of mine and it was my main inspiration pic. It's too dark for my space I think, but the island in particular is what I like. That's interesting about the German/Italian dynamic. I've been impressed by Italian ones in the past (I love a Varenna kitchen, just out of budget), but to be honest I met with about 3 different designers touting Italian kitchens when we were shopping earlier in the year, fully prepared to go Italian, and the ridiculousness of some of the form-over-function features we encountered (at a hefty price tag) really left an impression on me... it felt like they were being designed for people who like having large, beautiful kitchens but never actually cook. Features like hiding an already integrated fridge door behind another fairly cumbersome bigger door to create an 'ultra unkitchen', or keeping it 'clean' by only having a single pop-up island plug station to serve the whole bloody kitchen.... which looks great but HOW is that functional design for someone who, you know, actually cooks... or owns any appliances they use on a daily basis and don't want have to lug out of hiding every day... or maybe just drinks coffee from anything other than a French press? I digress. The annoyance is still there obviously, ha ha!! I'm sure they're not all like that, but a month or two of meetings had me running across the border to Germany!

Thank you for your ideas, Kendrah and Maureen. Kendrah, the current colors ARE really nice together—but they’re not “right” for us. Hopefully, the ones we end up choosing will be as graceful together. Maureen, I love the pictures you posted and the look of hinged shutters that can actually close, but we don’t have enough wall space on our porch to have that kind on the four front porch windows (or around our door) because of the sconces and doorbell. We took down the shutters that were on the ground floor because we thought they were too skimpy (and, unfortunately, can’t be any larger). We could have larger shutters made for our three upstairs windows (which would include the one over the garage)—but not for the front porch windows.