When we went looking for countertop material, we saw a display counter in one of the showrooms of seafoam green and really loved it. Unfortunately, their available slabs were a more yellowish/grayish faded sort of color. Not what we wanted. We searched about 6 other stoneyards and did not like any of the material we saw, so we started looking for alternates. We had decided that we wanted to go with a green material if we could find one we liked. We found some lovely slabs of seafoam at the last place we looked. What almost all of the suppliers told us was that the seafoam green material now coming out of the quarry is not as good as it used to be. Other materials we looked at were tropical green, rainforest green, minsk green, costa esmerelda, neptune bordeaux (sort of grayish/blue/greenish). The pictures I found of the Iron green look interesting. You told us what your cabinets and floors are like, but not the style of the cabinets and what type of feel you want your kitchen to have: traditional, modern, cozy, etc? That would help the people here give you suggestions. Pictures of the space would help too. For the perimiter countertops, you could pick a countertop in a quartz or other material that is light or picks up one of the colors in your island stone. The type of backsplash will really depend on the style of kitchen you want to have. Good luck with your kitchen project.

We did concrete for our kitchen and large island. We poured in place. Ours we left rustic because it fit our style but concrete can be finished in many different looks. The edge forms we used were the square edge but there were other options available. I love ours. We just got our CO today so haven't "used" them yet but they sealed very nicely and any liquid just beads up.

Pllog, Well, we are in both in CA, as some would say! ;) I do agree with your comment about granite being the standard because of its perception as being a luxury item. FrmrsDghtr, WOW!!! Love what you were able to do!!! RosySunnyGal, Our counters are Floating Blue which is a mostly turquoise in white cement matrix color. We were able to pick our slabs at the factory when it was still here in the Bay Area years ago. We have several KDs in our area that had samples of Vetrazzo, Icestone and Fuez to look over. IF you are looking for the wow factor, these will do it. With that in mind, I do recommend that you really like your countertop color because it is a very prominent part of your kitchen. They also aren't cheap and I highly recommend that your installer be someone who knows how to work with this material. Our installation fabricators claimed they did and we had multiple problems with them that we finally had to hire a second company to fix. We looked at all of the green countertop materials, and this was the one that my DH and I were able to agree on despite the price. BTW, I don't include quartz or C-stone in this category. I do recommend that you do an online search for recycled glass companies because there are several others besides the three I mention above. The ones that I have ran across are: Gilasi in the Chicago area, Urbanslabs in SoCal, Vetrazzo is now in the Atlanta area, and more that I have seen around the US. I do recommend if you can using one that is near you because of the weight and shipping cost of the slabs. If you are interested in knowing more or seeing some pictures of my counters, please, PM me.

I think butcher block on the island with quartz on perimeter will look and function better. If you use waterlox for it, you cannot cut on it. But it will give it a nice protective furniture finish. If you want to cut on it you need to use mineral oil, which is less permanent but repairable. If you cut on it, you will see marks on it, but you can sand it and re-oil over time. You can also use an oil based finish for the more natural look but not cut on it. That what I would do. If you search here you will see discussions of waterlox versus oil versus other products like osmo for wood island tops. Breezygirl highly recommends an osmo product that I am going to use on my wood island counter once it's installed.