I've found that rooms over garages are very hard to condition. there are a couple of ways to address this, walls shared with attic space are called kneewalls. on one side is living space (conditioned) on the other side attic space (extreme heat/cold). Southface has great info, check page 5 for visual of air sealing these walls. http://www.southface.org/default-interior/Documents/airsealingkeypoints.pdf with these attic rooms surrounded on 6 sides by extreme attic temps there are two ways to address them. one is pictured in link. convnetional insulation in stud bays, foam sheathing, caulked nailed & taped in place from top plate to bottom plate of kneewall. the detail on link also shows how to seal for air movement under floors of these rooms by using foam board, and placing it between floor joists & sealing air tight. I personally like to cut the foam board to fit tightly & air seal with caulk. I see people using great stuff..but am not a fan of the stuff myself. too much expansion to get a good seal, and over time, it shrinks. this is a process that is time consuming & detail oriented. easiest in new construction prior to any insulation being added to attic floor. more cost effective than spray foaming the walls and between floor area. but labor intensive. so its a easy fast process (spray foam) or a longer lower cost higher labor install with foam board. the benefit of creating an unvented semi conditioned attic space works great in my hot humid climate where in the summer attic temps reach 130+ degrees in attics. as we often put our ducts in the attic, the foam creates a less extreme temp for less heat gain. install of foam is crucial. temp mix has to be correct chemical mix has to be correct, temp of area sprayed is a factor. foam has to meet code requirements for your area. if code says R-30 in attic, enough inches of foam to reach that R-value has to be installed. seal has to be complete in an unvented attic. roof connection to attic floor has to be sealed. install should be level, no belly in or out between rafters. faces of rafters should be covered. none of that average fill stuff which means the spray can be less in some areas & more in others so that it 'averages' out to xx inches. low spots & voids will cause problems. testing for leakage, marking leakage sites with spray paint and having foam company spray to seal is the way I do my unvented attics. this all has to be established, in writing prior to any work being done. shop companies carefully. avoid 'average' fills, Kvalues Qvalues. R-values that is what code looks for. there is No exception for spray foam. I'm with Manhatten all the way on spray foam in walls. long payback when a better option is to put foam sheathing on exterior of walls & pay close attention to air sealing details. search southface site for air sealing pdfs..great stuff there! I've never recommended spray foam in walls after running the numbers for my climate & seeing 25+ year paybacks. and I've done these numbers lots of times, not just for one house. (btw hey Manhatten..long time no see) if you chose to use these details of air sealing for the tradeoff for this better insulation is SMALLER hvac system. it only makes sense people if you weight the benefits of upgrades against each other. get a load calc for the house including all types of insulation, window info, air tightness tight not leaky or average & the size needed lessens. bigger is not better, it is just lack of correct education in the trades & misinformatin to the homeowner to sell them more equipment than needed. you don't size the system for the 10 days a year of 50 people in the house & then pay for that the other 355 days. two stage units, variable speed air handlers are great things that vary with the needs of the house as they change. these are good investments. if you are truly interested in making your house efficient, hire an energy rater. specific to you information with inspections, testing & verification. unbiased working for you. resnet.us is a good place to start. new construction, existing homes we do it all. best of uck.

polyiso is easy to cut, it is the other foam board with less R-value that is so difficult to cut. as it is comprised of tiny styro balls formed to make sheathing & topped on one side with somewhat reflective plastic that quickly dulls when left exposed. these sheathing boards are difficult to cut. little rigidity, and even with sharp razor knife the particles fall apart as cuts are made, having only one backing nothing holds it together. IMO...real pita! in my mind the high R-value(R-6-7 per inch) is closed cell,the low (R-3 per inch) is open cell. as mfg sheets do not define it this way...I hesitate to do so online. but essentially tha is what it is high density & low density foam. just wondering OP, which type and how much per sheathing? here 1" polystyrene is about $20 each. no 2" unless special order. best of luck op.

I'll add this then: Durock? It's an approved substrate for any of the surface applied membranes. Sure it generates dust when cut with a power saw or angle grinder. But if you score and snap with a blade? It's pretty clean. It is heavy when compared to foam...but you'll be installing a half-dozen sheets max. Foam board? Sure, it's even lighter in weight. Here's all I recommend. Find the foam you want to use. Choose a membrane, example, Hydroban sheet membrane. Then call Laticrete's tech department and ask what thinset/adhesive they recommend for adhering their membrane to the EPS/XPS/foam of your choice. If you get a solid answer, by all means move onward with the project! If not, repeat for each foam/membrane/adhesive combo you can think of. Honestly, and again...I'm a guy who thoroughly appreciates the DIYer mentality...I built my own houses, boats, kayaks, canoes, airplane, swimming pool, I've drilled my own wells for water, I've done a couple of frame off car resto's...all solo. Trust me, I embrace the DIYer mentality. But showers? Here, on this forum, I do worry about compromised showers. Because houses are the most valuable investment most people on these forums will ever make, and water damage from a shower can just muck things up in tremendous fashion. Plus, it's near impossible to properly repair a shower short of tearing it out and rebuilding it. If your primary concern is weight and dust? Then I'll wave the bugger flag. And I'm waving it in an attempt to help you out. Just buy USG foam board and be done with it. Hydroban sheet is maybe $1.25 a foot? Kerdi about $2. Foam board? Maybe .40 cents. Adhesive? Who knows. Best case, you're saving yourself $1 a sqft by trying to make your own versus buying USG's product. For a shower of your size, that's maybe $75 you're saving. On an expenditure of how much for the entire shower? It's a fairly small percentage. Again...I THOROUGHLY embrace the DIY spirit. But with you being motivated by weight and dust? I'd spend the extra $75 to get the USG foam board. Lightweight. No dust. And you KNOW it's going to work. Plus you'll avoid the pain of having to lug a heavy and dusty bag of thinset home and the pain of trying to thinset or adhere the membrane of your choice to the foam of your choice with the adhesive of your choice on your own. Just my opinion. Worth the price paid. Good luck!! Seriously. Whichever way to proceed, I'd love to hear how things turn out.

Thank you for all the suggestions! aprilneverends -- i am going to check out vintage lights and see what I can find! I am going to try the paper thing in the back to potentially add some lightness to it. I might change the handles still -- except I held up handles similar to my cabinets and they do not go LOL so I'm not sure about that. bbnny - I will have to try that to freshen the wood! Crocks! I didn't think of that but that would be great! I am also starting a small Rae Dunn Collection so maybe I could use that as well. justerrilynn - I LOVE that wood backsplash idea! I was originally looking at subway tiles, but the wood look is so much warmer! and I did consider staining the island top, so maybe that would help! I also agree, the previous homeowners made a lot of "upgrades" but they used about 1,000 different styles throughout the house. They put a brand new glass shower with sleek tile in the downstairs bathroom and then took a super vintage old dresser with weird red knobs and made it into the vanity.... it is so random. I wish they would have updated the kitchen in a more "rustic" warm way, however, I have always wanted a white kitchen. At least the floor they picked was warm. haha Thank you all for the suggestions! I'm going to look into lighting and go from there