Argh!! I though I'd have a working kitchen by now... but we're still roughing in plumbing and can't seem to make the countertop decision. Can you guys with fabulous taste please give us some advice?

Kitchen is natural cherry shaker cabinets. It is in the center of the house, so although there are windows in all the adjascent rooms, none in the kitchen itself. We are installing a Solatube but it's not in yet. In any case, I MUCH MUCH prefer a lighter, brighter kitchen. We completely nixed the idea of dark counters for that reason, although I think they look nice in other people's homes and with different cabinetry.

We're going for a warm, organic, but cheerful feeling. Resale is KEY (3-year house for us). The kitchen also has an existing BRICK wall with fireplace opposite, and will have a slate tiled wall portion behind the woodstove in adjascent living room (where you can see the brick in the photos below).

When I was looking at granites 2 weeks ago, I found I really liked Costa Esmerelda, Ocean Green, even Costa Esmerelda Rose (though a bit too pink). I like the marble-like, natural, quiet movement I guess. BUT getting these stones in the kitchen, they seem too dark. So I think we are leaning towards HONED kashmir White.

The island top is the big conundrum. It will be wood plank: we want it to read more as a table surface than butcherblock. It is 5.5 x 4 feet, so really pretty huge in the space. We don't want to to be visually too big.

Light wood or dark? Consider that the cherry cabinets will darken considerably over the next 6 months.

(Please excuse the rough photoshop job. No appliances are actually in or anything!)

Cherry on cherry seems too boring and like a massive cube of material.

Walnut is gorgeous, love it, like that it is North American (greener).... but does it go with cherry? And will it just be too DARK DARK DARK? Make the room seem too dark, and make the island seem more massive? This photo makes it look lighter and warmer than I think it would be in real life. I think it would read quite a bit darker in the space...

Rock Maple originally seemed too predictable and ho-hum.... but now we're very seriously considering it because it seems to make the room so much cherrier & brighter.

{{!gwi}}

Iroko is hard to judge since colors vary so much. We'd love the look of teak, we think, and this was proposed as a teak substitute. (Cannot afford real teak!) But it's not at all green, being an exotic from I think Africa or South America.

{{!gwi}}

Backsplash will be tile, something light like glass tile or maybe tumbled marble or something....

Please! Input! ADvice!!

Thanks

Stacey