Beautiful transformation! Love the blingy backsplash! The tri-trash center looks like a terrific use of a corner cab. Love the mullions in your glass cabs - very pretty! It looks like such a warm and inviting space, and I love how it's integrated in your home now. Enjoy your beautiful new space!

"what do you mean by "horizontal lines" on the edges and sink cutouts? I can't visualize this in my head." A CNC (computer numerical control:) is a computer controlled router that can cut, shape, and polish the edges of stone. A typical tool set has 4 grits in metal bond shaping tools(100, 200, 400, 800) and three of four more that are resin bond polishing tools. (1000, 1500, 2000, 3000) The tooling, which are the parts which actually work the stone, are cylinders with various grits of diamond in a metal or resin matrix. To finish a sawn edge it is 1st shaped with a series of course tools made in the shape of the desired edge. As the tools pass along the edge the diamond grit leaves scratches in the stone. Subsequent tools of finer grit do not remove these scratches because there is no cross action. The edge ends up polished but the scratches from the coarse tools, which appear as horizontal lines, are still there. This effect can be minimized with proper set up and brand new tools do a better job than worn ones. A very high end shop will use the CNC to shape the edge but will finish off the edge by hand. A set of CNC tools is several thousand dollars so many shops use them well past the point where they are doing a good job. 10 years ago a CNC edge polish full of lines was considered poor quality. The advent of the big factory shops has lowered the bar for whats acceptable. In todays market most shops simply polish everything on the CNC and call it "good enough." Polishing to a finish on the CNC saves the fab shop several hours of hand labor on a typical kitchen. Most of the general public doesn't know the difference and, admittedly, it is often hard to see the lines given the lighting and viewing angle in most kitchens particularly on lighter colors. Unfortunately those lines can also be glaringly obvious in the right conditions or of the tooling was well worn. A tip off to a shop that finishes everything on the CNC is one that provides a variety of edge options for no upcharge. If the CNC is doing all the polishing there is little difference in the manufacturing time for a edge like an Ogee compared to a simple flat or 3/8" top radius.

Maybe that's the way you tell old money from new money? Very much so. From Vanity Fair in 1995, the year after she died, Even if Jackie had a limited amount of money to spend when she moved to New York in 1964, New Yorkers more accustomed to lavish displays of freshly milled chintz and newly quarried marble didn't understand her classic American style, which values comfort and continuity over the whims of fashion. They seem disconcerted that she never traded up: her library carpet was threadbare, the fabric on the dining room walls (originally bought for a dollar a yard on Orchard Street on New York's Lower East Side) faded, and her kitchen, in the words of one friend, "deplorable." They find it peculiar that she engaged a succession of decorators over the years—notably Albert Hadley, the late Harrison Cultra, the late Vincent Fourcade, Georgina Fairholme, Mark Hampton, and Richard Keith Langham—but the look never changed. (The last refurbishing was done, eerily, in the bedroom where she was to die. Only months before she became ill, Langham replaced the bed hangings with Scalamandre glazed cotton in "Tuileries," a lavender and salmon pattern of undulating vines and small flowers. Says Langham, "It's almost as if she knew what was going to happen.") One friend with an expert eye recalls that one of the few important pieces of furniture in the apartment was a subtly painted Louis XV table with a marble top, on loan from Bunny Mellon. The rest was French and Italian decorative painted furniture, souvenirs from Jackie's travels (an obsidian sphinx said to have been given by Anwar Sadat, Greek worry beads of blue glass), stacks of books, her collection of drawings of animals dating from the 17th century onward, and overstuffed sofas and chairs. A drawing table where she painted was set up in the living room. ... Those with refined sensibilities found it admirable that Jackie seemed to have remained immune to the decor mania of the late 70s and 80s and that she preferred to spend her time working as a book editor, riding, and playing with her grandchildren, rather than pondering species of fringe or the intricacies of upholstery with a decorator. They see in it a reflection of the uppercrust values of another era (benign neglect) and a reflection, as well, of her private self, as opposed to the immaculate public image. "Her tastes were very French," says art critic and lecturer Rosamond Bernier, who adds, "I think of a warm place, with a fire burning." "It was," says designer Carolina Herrera, "an apartment of someone who comes from an old family. Not a showplace full of marble like the homes of all these new people. It was her taste."

Hi Ellen! Sorry for the delay in responding. The daltile rep came out and wiped it down with acetone which helped, but I foolishly thought it could be done a little more and did it myself, resulting in a pretty big dull spot next to my stove. Luckily, the placement of a cutting board right on top of the spot looks good so that is what I will be doing. The acetone definitely helped the smudges though! I should have just not gotten so overzealous and taken matters into my own hands further. You live and you learn! :)