ok this is creepy...... I've been struggling with cabinet finishes cream with blue/gray island or stained with blue/gray island. Our kitchen is open to our family room that will have a corner stone fireplace and cabinetry for the tv. Just this morning we FINALLY decided to do stain with painted island. About an hour ago DH tells me to ask the cab guy is he has any cherry to look at and he wants to glaze it. I was thinking a chocolate glaze would look good. Our house will be a tad on the rustic side with log siding exterior. How did you get in my head?? :) have you decided on the island color yet? and are you going to glaze it? I'm a bit jealous you've signed off on so much, I'm so overwhelmed right now. but it'll get there. What type of floor did you decide for the kitchen / family room area?

Hi, Again - First, I do like my KitchenAid dishwasher - especially the cool blue lights. It works well, even though I'm afraid to put in truly dirty dishes! I can't recall which model it is, but I can look it up if you want the info. Second, Etc. - Here are the photos I promised: More photos of White Fantasy Quartzite than you probably wanted (Is it wrong to be obsessed with this countertop?): Photos of Lutron Switchplates and Dimmers (I forget the color, but the line is Diva and Maestro - and I got samples and placed them against my backsplash to see if they matched. They did, perfectly - yay!) OK, I also included more photos of candy, because I'm also obsessed with that. Note that the kids are not allowed to touch the apothecary jars, but the penny candy jars are all theirs. Yes, I do laugh at myself:: I think the photo with the apothecary jars shows a good sample of the jet mist granite, too: Here are photos of the pendant lights and the Hickory Hardware American Diner pulls, knobs and cup pulls. They aren't great pics, unfortunately. The thing that ties the cabinet hardware, pendant lights and kitchen faucet/hot&cold water dispenser together are that they are all satin nickel and they all have "beading" - a row or two rows of banding - at the edges. I hope you can see that in the pics. I do occasionally catch my sweaters on the knobs and pulls, but as I haven't ruined anything yet, I don't mind: I just realized you can click on the photos to go to my album, where you can see larger version of them, which may be helpful for details. A few additional thoughts. I debated putting in the outlets on the horizontal, so they would blend in with the subway tile backsplash. Of course, as soon as I made up my mind, I went to tell my contractor, who was in the kitchen, installing the outlets upright. Oh, well. I can definitely live with it (although I had to work very hard to convince him to install the Lutron outlets/switchplates -he thought white was just fine. Silly man!) Also, although I thought I had thought everything through, using the great advice from everyone here, I'm not happy with my silverware drawers. There aren't enough - really because they are very shallow. I think I should have figured out how to put in at least one or two deeper drawers so I could have put in two layers of silverware, knives, etc. Also, I thought I was going to have three drawers underneath my cooktop, with the top drawer to be used for untensils. It turned out that I can't use the top drawer at all because of the depth of the cooktop. I'm not sure what I would have done differently, but I wish I could use that drawer! Anyway, I think that's it for now, until I show you the "before" and the bathroom. Thanks again!

Thanks for the opinions. Not sure what to do, I love the WM but the antiqued steel gray doesn't excite me much. I don't dislike it at all though, and I'm thinking though it will sort of fade into the background and let some of the other materials shine... Island, I'm actually planning on a dark stained island with the WM, not white. The WM looks great with my darkest sample, Espresso, but Im not sure I want to go that dark, I had been leaning towards a more medium dark stain, called Coffee. My perimeter will be white and I'm still not sure which white, but I was leaning towards White Dove. I do know what you mean about the whites coordinating with the WM. I'd think I'd just try to steer clear of a white that looks too yellow. Sorry Im not much help! Im still narrowing down the many many options I like.

Mrs.Hanson--We are doing the opposite from your color scheme--our island & hood will be dark stain and the perimeter cabinets will be the off white. Like you, I really liked the marble, but with all boys in the house, I just don't think it's practical. So after hours and hours in the heat for 2 days in the granite yard lugging around our cabinet door samples, we came up with a compromise. We chose River Valley granite for the island to go with the dark cabintery--it's quite white with gray veining and just a bare hint of cranberry mixed in with the veining. For the perimeter, we went with San Gabriel Black to go with the off white cabinets. The guys at the granite yard were great--they pulled out the River Valley slab and carted it over to all the darker granite slabs section by section so we could compare the 2 different granites with coordinating cabinet doors side by side! You may want to take a look at the River Valley and see if it would work for you (I ran a google image search for it, but all the photos had way more movement in them than ours did.) Definitely take your cabinet doors down to the granite yard & make sure you're good with your combinations. Can't wait to see your finished kitchen!