I am having a lot of anxiety over this area and am really hoping for some guidance from all the experienced and gifted posters out there - please! We decided on absolute black honed for the counter - now need to decide the thickness. This dining room butler's pantry in the expanded dining room was suppose to appear like 2 independent furniture pieces. KD's goal was nothing like a kitchenette (or the adjacent kitchen) so he did not want 10 feet of a counter - hence the brown "china cabinet" piece steps back from the black "buffet counter" BUT he also planned for the counter heights to be different. The china cabinet has a thick (almost 4") of a wood slab between base and uppers. And he planned for 2 cm for the buffet. I know it is hard from these pictures (I'll try to get by there to get better ones today) but if we use 2 cm granite as recommended by the KD there will be only like 3/4 of an inch difference. If we use 3cm it could be shimmed up slightly to line up with the base of the routed edge on the dining room piece and seem in line. I don't want the 2cm to look like a mistake - a just miss BUT if the design with the step back already commits us to "mismatch" pieces I don't want to do it half way. HELP. I am at the end of a long line of too many decisions and just want this done and moving forward. Any help, suggestions, questions etc. would be GREATLY appreciated.

I think you can't go wrong - should you go with wood counters - with having it be light to match the floors or medium to match the cupboards or darker to give some contrast. You'd have to show us pictures to give our opinions of darker or lighter I think but I don't think you can go wrong. I personally like the look of subtly contrasting layers (making up that term - I don't really know much about design but this feels like the right word). In other words for example let's say medium floor, light-ish lower cabinets, darker countertop, contrasting backsplash (that also pairs well) and then lighter upper cabinets again (with pops throughout such as something even as simple as a white sink on a black counter). So in your case if you have light floors which run up against medium cabinets, and then more matching cabinets above, I would probably be inclined to do something on the counter other than wood, or else put a LOT of thought into that backsplash. I happen to ADORE wood countertops, but then that's also cause I have white painted antique cabinets (I have old fir flooring). I would have gone w/ wood had I found a hard and water-friendly enough wood (cause of the sink) that also happened to be not too light (light wood counters weren't found in the old houses around here) and one that wasn't too full of contrasting stripes. It just got too complicated and I ended up loving that zinc look (zinc was found in lots of houses as old as mine, 1913, but in their pantries) so I went w/ stainless. Stainless isn't as nice as zinc but it's cheaper, more durable and makes a similar statement if done with a farm sink, old cupboards and lots of wood around for warmth e.g. in the floors or island top. I also may not have done stainless had I not planned on doing it with honed white marble subway tile which is a dream combination - along with all that wood I mentioned. But marble wouldn't go in the farm house I'm guessing and if it's truly a very old farm house I'm not sure stainless would work - it might not be rustic enough. It's surprisingly NOT modern looking though, if it's surrounded by other old-fashioned looking things including appropriate lighting. It's just soft and watery and clear/reflective in a way and handles scratches really well (they all blend in and seem to buff out with every cleaning/drying) and it lends a lot of light to an otherwise dark room such as mine. I'd love to see pics!

I bet the cabinets are built in place. Moving/removing might destroy them. You may end up saving the doors and having new boxes made. Then they can be any height you want. The sink will be a problem if you don't replace/raise the window, too. You need that sink for the feel of the kitchen if you want to keep the look of the cabs. It will probably cost the same to just buy new cabinets. But that doesn't solve the sink problem in the same foot print. And if you change the foot print then you've opened a new can of worms. Changing the window size would probably be the best thing to do.

for the handles, may I suggest something to pick up on the hues in the flooring? A little more copper toned. you have light cabs, light floors. I think throwing in a dark ORB w/o actual copper highlights would be too much of a contrast. IMO. cypress park Sandra, I like the porcelain one better than the other one. Does the backsplash have to be done immediately? If the tones in the porcelain tile you picked clash w/the ivory tones in the counter, it could be a problem. However, I did find some copper toned ones that should be avail. these are porcelain/SS, and treated so as not to stain or tarnish. I LOVE these for your kitchen. timeless and gorgeous. They are probably not super cheap, but it would be worth it for me. http://www.miusartmosaics.com/arabesque-lantern-beacon-copper-tile-in these would also work. the site is here: maybe they have them in stock.http://www.westsidetile.com/arabesque-tiles/ i like this one too. notice the copper faucet. beautiful w/the glass mosaic. if you got the cream countertop, this would look amazing w/your floors. this last one is a copper colored slate/quartzite.