Thanks so much! I, too, really love this slab! Oh, and my apologies -- it's actually called White Springs, not Warm Springs. Thanks so much for all the input here, I really appreciate it! :)

Hi Kirkall, thanks. It's the two of us and our toddler daughter and she'll probably be our only child. It's a Cape with one and a half stories, 1080 square feet. Downstairs is a kitchen/living room on one side and a dining room and the first bedroom on the other side. There's one bath separating the kitchen and dining room and a set of stairs separating the bedroom and living room, leading upstairs to the second bedroom. Off the top of my head, I see the pros and cons as follows: Side addition. Right now, the side door leads into the kitchen, which is TINY and there's no proper entryway storage. An addition there would help shoulder the burden in terms of kitchen storage, coat closet, shoe storage, etc., as well as being some extra spill-over entertaining space. Upstairs half-dormer. Right now, there is an upstairs bedroom and a crawl space. I *think* it would be relatively easy to blow out that back crawl space and add a second bedroom and bath. So we would get a third bedroom (nice) and a second bath (even nicer!). Back addition. There's a glass slider that leads to the deck from the dining room. This is the south side of the house so this would (hopefully) be a lovely sunny space that add something to the dining room area. Again, extra entertaining space and probably some additional storage for kitchen stuff. Probably not as handy as any of the other additions. In terms of price points. This is one of the lower end houses in our neighborhood and would probably sell for around 200K. One of the higher end homes might go for 350-375. We are almost done with our current mortgage, so we would probably take out a second mortgage to remodel, but we're really not looking to go crazy there, especially given our ages (early forties).

I don't understand why anybody thinks Design Dilemma isn't the right place to talk about finishes for a kitchen! :) We live for questions like that! I do think that GreenDesigns has nailed the issue, though -- what do you mean when you use the word "modern"? and I might add a question about what you mean by "taupe"! there are a lot of colors between white and black... Flat/slab cabinets can be pretty spiff in a range of contexts, but you do have to know what you're aiming for...

"Shannon, you are right on point. Another way to say what you have written is that the stone counter fabrication market is rampant with obfuscation." NO. That is NOT what I said at all. I do not know how you got that from what I wrote. You missed entirely my point. The theme throughout my post was that stone pricing is a matter of supply and demand. I said that every which way. Your outrage and paranoia ignore that you and everyone else are free to go to as many stoneyards as you want, and as many fabricators as you want, and get quotes until you find one that is the right combination for your budget and what stone you like. You are also free to seek out other materials like wood, formica, Corian, stainless steel if you don't like stone pricing. If the stone you like is out of your budget, that is not anyone "manipulating" the customer. Again, that has to do with supply and demand. What you like may be what everyone else likes at that point in time, and if there isn't a lot of it, the price will go up and may be more than you are willing to pay. You also ignore the idea that the more skilled fabricators charge higher prices for their expertise, as they should. Do you know how many hack jobs of counters we see on this forum from people who hired fabricators based on their low cost? Hundreds. You wrote "some of the providers are making out like bandits" - what? People are entitled to make a living and put food on the table for their families, and if they are very good, they should make more. Again supply and demand - if people aren't willing to pay, the price would go down. "the marketers and other entities can charge whatever the market will tolerate." Yes, that is called a free market. It happens for everything you purchase every day. Food, furnishings, housing, gasoline, entertainments, electronics, airfare, etc. If you don't like those charges, you are free to look at all the other choices available to you. I am disappointed you misinterpreted what I said. I want the readers of this forum to know that what you are saying is not what I was saying.