Keana, part of the hosta circle of life - hail, branches, drought, deer, slugs, cutworms, rabbits (except Phil), hvx, etc ..... and mix in all the years when the hostas look great and you can't wait till next year. Just gotta find your zen place - hakuna matata. Paul

NhBaskets, while I agree on not turning on the hood until it's fully installed, do check on the venting on not only your range hood but your bath vents too. At the outset, when I asked, I was told that our range hood would vent through the roof. ok. The day the HVAC guys finished the venting we noticed that our range hood venting pipe goes up into an attic space, turns a corner and is vented out into the CLOSED porch roof area. The part between the porch ceiling and the roof above it. This is totally wrong. The builder knows this, and it needs to be corrected before we move in, but there must be some mysterious timeline for correcting stuff like that. Meanwhile I keep checking it. I'm quite concerned that they don't connect our Vent-A-Hood and try to turn it on until the vent is properly installed through the roof. Also, we noticed that the bathroom vents went up into same porch roof space, or just up into attic area, and did not connect to anything, although the vent holes are cut into porch ceiling for those. Now a lot of those are hidden behind drywall. Honestly, I don't understand why they don't do it right the first time. And why they don't correct it right away if it wasn't done right. If they'd corrected it right away the roof flashing would have gone around the vent hole and we would be a lot more confident that we wouldn't eventually have a problem there. As it is now, the roof is finished, and cutting a hole is going to present all the problems it would as if it were a remodel. And we don't have problems with our builder, we love him and for the most part everything is going very very well. I have so much sympathy for you. I just can't imagine how stressful this would be with problems with the builder.

I love clocks, especially analog clocks. I love that Newgate clock, but it's too big for that wall. It's too big for that whole room. It's not just the face diameter. It must be 5-6" thick. A clock like that belongs on the wall of a gymnasium. It's also a nostalgic, retro clock. Besides it's size, it doesn't really add to a sleek, clean, contemporary kitchen. And it's such a nice, clean looking kitchen, too. It's a shame to clutter that particular wall with a triple gang light switch, an intercom, a thermostat, a doorbell, and something else I can't identify. How much effort would it take to move the thermostat and the doorbell (and maybe the unidentified object) around the corner to the hall? Also move the intercom closer to the edge, near the door frame. Then finish the wall with a contemporary painting or photo that's large enough to occupy 2/3 of the upper portion of the wall. Make it have a stainless steel frame to match the contemporary kitchen. Or find a wall sculpture that vertically occupies a good portion of the wall. Keep it contemporary by using stainless with pieces of color you like for the rest of your kitchen. Just a few alternate ideas.

Thank you all for your help!! We decided to go with the Bamboo green granite! It was in our budget.. (which I am quite surprised about because it is so exotic) and the color scheme is still exactly what I was going for! colorfast - we are in GA and this stone is actually coming from one of the ATL yards. The good thing is they will ship it down here and if I don't love it as much, they will ship it back! A trip to Atlanta is the last thing I want to do right now by myself with my two babies.. doesn't sound like much fun even if there is a beautiful piece of stone waiting for me to fall in love with it and bring it home! :-) dianalo - you said it just right! I based all my decisions with the vision of the first slab, so nothing I saw looked right. But I let go of that because I had no choice and started looking with "different eyes" persay! And now I am more in love than before!!! SOO EXCITED!! Now to finish the last bit of demo and have the floors installed so we can get the pretty stuff moved in!! Thanks again for all of the suggestions and help!