In responce to the original posters question, there is a very low cost way to improve the house, and most importantly it's a cheap way to use a large amount of solar energy. I've seen passive solar designs that can supply 100% of the building's heating needs, but unfortunately they were very strange looking and expensive. However, you can still supply a large amount of heat by adjusting a more conventional house design to use passive solar. Apparently, just rotating the house design so that the wall (normally front) that has the most windows is in line with south can reduce the heating requirements by 10-25%. Using different percentages of glazing for each angle, and even different types of glass can also bring large savings. You can certainly get much more in depth, but this gives you an idea of how it works. Implementing these simple passive solar techniques shouldn't cost anything, it's not about adding new materials, but instead placing things you would allready be using like glazing and roof eves in specific places. A number of people believe that passive solar homes will be great in the cool weather, but then overheat horribly in the summer. Thankfully this isn't true, the angle and direction of the sun changes with the seasons, thus you can use the correct percentage and type of glazing for each facade to collect heat in winter and reduce it in summer. A well designed passive solar home will reduce costs and increase comfort all year round. Passive solar homes also need some other small modifications, starting with thermal mass to store the heat. One of the cheapest and most effective options is a well insulated slab on grade foundation. Thermal mass will absorb the radiated heat from the sun and release it in to the building, and it also provides some thermal buffering as it collects heat during the day and releases it overnight. Extra insulation is also important for passive solar, but generally it's not a huge expense and will save energy for the entire life of the building. This insulation will retard the transfer of heat both from inside and outside the building. In the winter it will retain collected solar heat longer in to the night, while in the summer the internal heat gain as the sun goes up will be much slower than it would in the same building with less insulation. You don't need any expensive or complex solar systems to use solar energy, the very building itself can be a solar collector for minimal extra cost. And it will never break down, need replacing or servicing, it will just keep working as long as the building stands and isn't altered.

I regret not thinking about an edge more when I was having countertops installed. I just picked a simple edge but now I wish I was doing what you are doing and really thinking about it. There are some wonderful choices that work with your.... Rustic, Italian country, quality Don't be afraid to go with a more exotic or interesting edge than the plain bullnose or 1/2 bullnose. In my mind, I see Rustic and Italian mean warmth texture and understated elegance. Here are some ideas... ~boxer. This is what I wish I had chosen.

mmqchdygg..your so funny!!!! Make friends with that bag of grout..it wont bite!! diytrying- Soldering the pieces together would be cool,Im assuming you would be using copperfoil? But like mmqchdygg said using 1/2 grout or no grout would be cool to. When the pieces are tight enough together you wouldn't probably need to, they dont use grout when they use (crap the word just totally slipped my mind!!!!) its a glass that is very colorful and hand made that they usually dont grout because it just looks better without it!!! Sorry for the brain-fart I just for the life of me cannot think of the word I want...anyhow..you can make it look good!!!

Thanks again for the links. Jsweenc, I re-scoured the site after you wrote that because I thought "what if I missed them on there?!" But still no luck - although it is impressive how many they have on there. So we wound up at Ikea for some other stuff (including ice cream, of course) and we got hardware there! It's a style that we never would have imagined, funny how things work out like that. We went with the "strecket" pulls. The best part is the holes go on the inside of the drawer/cabinet only, so if we change our mind we won't have any holes to deal with covering up. They have a nice low profile, and our kitchen is small but these don't throw off the scale of the room (which was an issue with some of the handles we saw). Thank you again for the advice! Here is a link that might be useful: ikea strecket pictures