Oh, this thread is great. Sorry khallock about the marital drama. Nothing like a reno to bring out the worst in both spouses. My DH and I remodeled after a house fire. We were under tremendous schedule pressure and are very different in how we process decisions. Plus he is color blind, not great at visualizing spaces and prefers to be a nay-sayer rather than idea proposer. Fun times! We also went round and round about the fridge. I really loved the columns and we desperately needed more freezer space than we could get in a standard 36". We agreed on a counterdepth appliance but struggled for a long time over what to buy. The budget was what finally killed the columns for us. We ended up with a 42" Thermador side-by-side, and we still grumble about the freezer size. My DH was the one who fell in love with the Wolf 36" cooktop and I just went with it. I don't regret it, but I didn't have strong opinions about it otherwise. The biggest conflict we had in the kitchen remodel was over the backsplash design. I chose a colorful tile early on and then played around with countless patterns. He was very firmly fixed on having a traditional, regular, repetitive pattern and I was not. I posted pics here and took a vote and the winner was a random pattern, which I liked best too. Other more experienced designers here helped me understand why it was more appealing and gave me some words to use to explain it to my DH. I insisted that we would have a random pattern, trying to explain why it made sense. He was very unhappy. I held my ground and the backsplash is awesome. Now, whenever we have guests, he takes them right into the kitchen and says "My wife designed this. Isn't it great?" Establish your shared vision for this kitchen. Make a mood board. Learn to use a 3D sketching software so you can play with different things like the fridge, etc. And accept the fact that sometimes you are just going to have to stand your ground.

I read & skimmed through all 4 or 5 threads on this because we're getting ready to do our kitchen in a very similar color scheme. I was hoping when I got to the end there would be a picture of her finished kitchen... I must admit that a number of the color schemes for the backsplash did not do anything for me until I saw Concept #1, which was not introduced until the previous thread (at least not that I saw). My concern with a dark(ish) countertop & a light backsplash is there is no flow, no continuity, no blend from counter up wall (even though cabinets are light)... it's just "BAM! counter ends here, backsplash starts here". But Concept #1 seemed to work, at least on a computer screen. @michelew90 - did you ever make a final decision? If you did I would love to see pictures.

Lynn .... glad you like the Jeffrey Court field tile .... yes marry him (AND live happily ever after in sunny California!!) .... can you tell, I hate MI in the winter!!! I'm sure both you and Susan are doing much more extensive remodeling jobs than we did. I didn't get new cabinets. Really couldn't afford that and besides, my dad built those for me 32 years ago. Now, they DO need refinishing, and come spring, I'm going to decide just WHAT to do about that!! But I want to live with the rest of the NEW stuff for awhile. I did go to Beaver Tile and the lady there helped me a LOT!!! They are a tile showroom and do not sell to the public, so I have a tile store nearby I am using. But the young girl in that store just doesn't seem interested in my small project. She has made a few suggestions regarding the field tile (which I had already decided on); but as for the *sparkley* inset, she ONLY sees dark brown. Well, to get to the point, yesterday Kathy, suggested pulling the green out of the granite. So, I am getting samples of the colors: Thatch and Morrell. She thought the Thatch (caramel) color would blend OK (she's not sure about the glazing around the tile however; but the Morrell, would blend good and be a little more contrast. I am *trying* to put a pix of the Morrell in here. Read descriptions under pix!! Have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! OK .... Picasa seems to have CHANGED where to find the html code so, hoping this works (oh, why can't I be tech savvy!!!) Well, I CAN NOT FIND anywhere those codes on Picasa .... so, you can (hopefully) copy/paste this in (hoping it shows up and you DON'T need a password) Could this be because I used a pix from a website and NOT an actual photo I took??? Here goes: https://picasaweb.google.com/114185928512321257398/November232011

Because you are short on space, my guess is that you will be using your uppers alot. Where will you store your step stool? If the step stool will be used alot and you will need to access it often... What about brooms and such that are tall. I don't see any storage that can accomodate brooms or mops. Is there storage for these elsewhere? I know that the trend is to sit at 2 and 3 sides of the island. I actually prefer to sit at the dinner table for real meals. We only use the island for really quick informal meals, ie weekday breakfast. I find that having stools on multiple sides of the island creates a bit of traffic issue unless you have a really huge house with huge hallways. As it is you now created a smaller hallway between the back of your couch and the short side of island seating. There are always pros and cons to every decision that you make. I only sit on 1 side of the island and that is the side that gives us the view. The other side would have had the diners face the range. For me, the spectacular sunrise that we see on our east facing breakfast view was more than enough to make up for the loss of seating on the short side of island. No one would have sat on that side to face the range if given the choice. In your kitchen, I would have tried to orient the island seating to look out the large window if there is a nice view and if the measurements work for you. (it looks like it would...) One of my pet-peeves of the design experts on this forum is that they do not give enough credance to the house and the view/outlook of the kitchen. You need to really figure out what the strength of the original room is. To me, a nice view and natural light are something that needs to be maximized. Go in your kitchen and ask yourself what you want to look at while eating your meals. Do you want to see the refrigerator/range or the window over the sink? Then you create the room to make that happen, IMHO.... I am throwing a bit of monkey ranch at the last minute... Sorry...