What a nice kitchen! You must be very excited. I know what you mean about sneaking away to look at your beautiful stone. My cabinets are still in their boxes in the garage, but DH brought one of the glass cabinets in the house so that I can "touchy feel" it every day! He thinks I'm nuts! Barb

I'm too out of it to follow all the suggestions and still keep the question in my head, so please forgive if I'm duplicating or contradicting. Peanut, I definitely think the scale of what you drew is better than the old hood, which really is a bit dainty for the surroundings, but I'm not sure about the exact shape you drew--though it should be easy to work with, which is a plus. It works so well in the white kitchen with the shelf because the color all blends. I think the first version with the yellow and brown works better on that basis than the one with the white and stainless. In my opinion, if you want the white and stainless you need a more tapered hood to show a little of the wall behind, making it join up, visually, with the range, instead of just protruding from the cabinets. Additionally, I think that using the accent tiles on the hood will detract from the tiles over the range. I actually think what you've drawn would look pretty great, though I'd like to see some detailing in the trim band. I personally think tiled hoods look best with brick shaped tiles (e.g., subways) rather than squares. Squares feel heavier. But I think it would be better if you pulled the golden yellow out of the accent tile for the hood tiles. I like the copper for the edge. It ties in well with the cabinets, and, of course, the counters. And it's free for the price of your labor. What I think would look really good, however, is if you used a shape that echoes your crown molding. It could be your actual crown, or wood moldings with a tile inset, or all copper, or a tile molding, or whatever. If you want to get really fancy, you can incise the copper for the trim using your accent tile for a pattern (breaking up the shape a little to make it more horizontal), and enamel it. Or just paint it. Or hammer on some zink or stainless. Or just anneal it inside the lines, if you think you can control it well enough. I think the old hood did compete a little with the range, but because the tiled hood follows from the tiled backsplash, etc., I'm pretty sure it'll help draw the eye to the range, rather than dominating it. Tiling up to the insert sounds great...but it would be even better if you could tile behind it. (I don't know how permanently installed it currently is. You can use broken or cut tiles behind it to space it out, and just overlap the actual backsplash tiles a tiny bit. This gives you a much cleaner edge and makes it much easier to get the works out if you need to. I've seen some amazing tiled hoods, but most of them are too ornate for your space. The kind of simple, clean ones you've shown in your examples are much better!

Ella, Here's a link to some grey paint colors on the Gallery section of Home Decorating. It really helps to see the colors used in a space rather than on a little chip. Good luck and happy grey hunting! Here is a link that might be useful: Greys

Hi Linelle, I am so happy that you made a choice and I am glad you are happy with your Cloud White choice which is what I would choose. I never knew the pain could be so bad from losing my little Furson. I loved him so much and I was shocked to find I could not revive him. His seizures had been getting worse and the increase in the medicine was too much for him. I never should have left him alone in the kitchen without carrying him to the other room to put on his bed. I was not ready to lose him. I was only gone about 4 - 5 minutes and I had not left him alone in the past few weeks in any room but my gated home office where he was safer. I miss his little kisses and how bonded were were. He had not been able to play fetch for awhile. The other little dogs miss him so much. When another one of mine passes, I plan to adopt a little kitten or cat that likes little dogs. He was the oldest and was an only furchild for a few years. I had planned to write a post but the crying has been terrible and the guilt of leaving him alone when I knew he kept fainting. He just seemed more well that morning and instead of going to the puppy pad, he was waiting by the patio door for me to let him out to go do his "big boy potty" for a "big boy potty treat". I feel my life will never be the same without my little Skeeter.