Hi. I'm getting a new granite countertop myself--it will be installed on Tuesday! So I have been doing lots and lots of looking at granite-- both in person (went to lots of warehouses) and in magazines. The trend is definitely toward lighter stone countertops, judging by what I see in the the magazines. (Carrera marble is also getting more popular in those designer kitchens, for some inexplicable reason. Marble is not practical in a kitchen, so many people are trying to imitate that look with certain granites, like white river. ) This trend toward lighter granite was verified by several granite sales people at the warehouses and fabricators I spoke with. Of course, this may be a regional thing. I live in Maryland, near D.C. , where everyone and his brother, it seems, is getting granite! Have you thought about checking out a lighter stone, like a cream or white? (such as Bianco romano, white shivakashi, Colonial Cream, white river, among others.)I am getting Harvest Cream, which is similiar to Colonial cream. It has a white or off-white background with lots of golden accents that pick up the color of my cabinets, and grey/black and taupe accents and a light sprinkling of garnet(burgandy) in there too. My cabinets are honey-spice maple (installed 10 years ago with a formica countertop). We did some minor remodeling that called for a new countertop--so I was so glad I didn't spend the big bucks for the corian that was so popular back then, and that I had an excuse to now get granite! I'm not sure how dark your "autumn" cabinets are, but you should try to have some contrast. If your cabinets are dark or medium dark, I think that a very light granite would provide a great contrast with your cabinets and darker floor, but that is just my personal opinion. Are you going for a traditional or contemporary look? Black tends to look "modern". If you do want a very dark countertop, I would think that a very dark brown would look better than black with your mocha floors(which I assume is a very dark brown.) You probably already have thought of this, but when you go to the granite warehouses to select your slab, bring a cabinet door and piece of your flooring to see how it all looks together. Another thing to consider is what you want on your backsplash. If you want a very "busy" stone or tile, then you should select a granite that would not look too busy, so the darker colors would work well for that, usually. I am going to go with a tumbled white travertine backsplash. If I went with anything busier, it would "fight" with my granite. Hope this helps. Hope this helps.

I'm still interested, and I love it! The only thing I question is the ORB hardware. I would wait until you get it all in and then experiment with ORB and satin nickel. I like ORB (I used it for all my light fixtures and drapery rods), but I think I would like satin nickel better with your cabinets and marble. When choosing a backsplash tile, see if you can get a sample of the current stock of a tile before ordering it. Marbles vary a lot so that may save some disappointment. If you choose calacatta I think a larger tile (like 2" x 4") shows the dramatic veining a little better than mini bricks or a small square mosaic, although I like them all. Will you have the same paint color in the kitchen and the room with the fireplace? I'm not sure if I'd like a yellow around the fireplace, but it looks nice with all your kitchen stuff. Maybe try something like SW amazing gray.

If you have trouble visualizing what you'd like but "know it when you see it", then at this stage you should probably just look at as many stainless / dark cherry kitchens as you can and see which countertops and flooring "grab" you. In my case I knew I wanted simple, natural cherry cabinets and stainless appliances and probably a wood floor, but that was it. Looking at lots of pictures helped me narrow things down, so now I can at least have intelligent conversations with kitchen designers. I'd suggest going over to houzz.com and entering "stainless steel dark cherry kitchen" into their search box and looking through some of the hundreds of results you get. It's a great source of ideas. After you see some you like, you can probably come up with more words to add to the search box to narrow things down. You can also go to google and enter "site:gardenweb.com dark cherry stainless" and you'll find lots of threads on this site too. I don't know of a way to limit it to threads with photos, unfortunately. Laura

These are my pics of my countertops placed Friday June 22, 2018. I cried looking at these seams. It looks so cheap. Fabricator explains that's the way it comes. I explained that I shouldn't be able to see the seams so clearly. It looks so unprofessional. They ended up taking them back to their warehouse. In hopes they say if it is quality control will try and fix it just to make it look better. Otherwise I will have to pay an additional fee for them to come out again to install. I just don't know what to do and if still looks the same. This is the first time I've replaced my counters in 24 years. I don't and can't live with it. looking at this for another 24 years. It looks so cheap and it really was not it's a lot of money to me. I hope fingers crossed that they will fix this problem. They never told me that there would be such seams. I thought the edges were done by a machine and it would be all one piece. I have read up on this and now understand there are seams. But now I do know that they should not look like this. If they are good fabricator you shouldn't be able to see them so clearly. I will find out next week what happens.