I have just put cultured stone from Eldorado on my fireplace as well and it looks amazing! A huge improvement over what was there previously, and a quick and easy update. It might be a fairly rustic look in the kitchen (guess it depends on the stone), but if that fits your plans my only thought would be echoing those above in that it would be hard to keep clean. It's not only the irregular/3D shape but also the porosity. A fairly dark sample and/or one with enough variation in the colour would probably hide most stains. Just not sure about grease spots. Maybe you could spray some olive oil on a sample and see how it holds up? And then there's the issue of food residue in a porous surface and the potential for growth of micro-organisms, but unless you're eating off of it (I hope not!) I'm not too sure that's a worry. I'm not 100% sure but my impression when I was shopping for my fireplace surround is that "cultured stone" is actually concrete? If so, and if we're talking about the same thing (no quartz or resin in my cultured stone), I think it should be OK with the heat from your range. It's around our wood burning fireplace after all, though I haven't had the opportunity to use that fireplace yet. I'm no expert in this stuff, I just know it is heavily marketed to fireplace surrounds. FWIW I have a 3D tile on the wall behind my cooktop - not nearly the same thickness scale as the stone around my fireplace, but 3D nonetheless. I love it! A little bit more fun than the current subway trend (apologies to subway lovers:) hth, mmhmm

Thank you palimpsest! I have put in a request, we will see...Can't wait to get all this ordering done.

Yeah --I was afraid lol but calmer now. Glad you told me that, I really was thinking someone else has access... I don't take things like that lightly, very serious when you consider this is a website where you can buy things.... You would still have to enter your purchasing info. Credit card and so on....really nothing to get that upset over when messages on a forum disappear.

This site is awesome. Timely conversation, as our designer recommended we move our range from a peninsula (that will become an island) to an outside wall, for better function. It is a GE Cafe dual fuel 30 inch range with the island trim, put in just over 3 years ago. After finding this thread, found an online install information, with the only recommendation to be 2 1/2 inches from the wall in the back and 3 inches clearance on the sides, and they had no recommendations for the wall behind the stove otherwise. I called GE and the service department there confirmed that this island trim oven was ok to use on a wall counter, and that to just follow code for the wall behind it. No recommendations other than the 2 1/2 inches from the back. I discussed this with our designer, who had just recommended only 24 inch counters, and the quartz backsplash, who was pretty noncommital about needing any changes. When I did say I cook sourdough bread at least twice a week, with 500 degree ovens for warmup, she said to get tile or real stone, but didn't need to change the counter depth as the tile was the fireproofing. It will be fairly easy for us to deepen the counter about 3 inches, I will just need to have a 30 inch sink rather than a 33 inch sink on the counter that will now be 3 inches less wide. But that will be just me and our countertop/cabinet group, not sure if it is worth it to convince our designer of what is common sense to me. Now we get to work on backsplashes. This range has the simmer and smaller burners in the back, with the larger speed boil burners in the front, so not sure what the fireproof wall in the back needs to be.