Despite the mishaps, you are making the best of it and your bathroom will come out lovely in the end. No one will know what you went through unless you tell your war stories, lol. We found $1,200 worth of rot when they ripped the patio out to do the extension. Our architect is extorting us to the tune of $1,500 to draw an "as built" plan to correct his structural mistakes. We cannot close up the walls on the main level until he does and the building inspector approves the re-draw and comes to our house. It is freaking cold here in NY in Dec and there are 4 of us living in our cold bsmt along with half of our upstairs' belongings(half the heat is on the zone with the main level that is currently without heat). We are worrying about our pipes freezing and our architect says it is "not his concern". The reason we are renovating/extending in Dec is because when we rehired him to do our plans with revisions in July (and paid an additional $1,750 above the original $5k), we did not know he would do the plans so poorly that it would take me 4 long trips to get the town to accept our plans with him sitting on the plans and being slow on each correction. Our house took on some heavy storm damage in the Spring and everyone knew, including the architect, that it would not get through another winter. The only delay on our part was securing the money for the work because if we couldn't, we'd have had to fix the exterior in its current/state size and then re-do half the work when we extended. I say all this to tell you that there are some pretty fierce reno gods in every category. The only bright sides were we almost fixed our roof and exterior last Fall and it would not have taken on the storm damage, which would not have gotten us $7k from the insurance company, and we'd still be saving up to extend "one day". The storm was the kick in the pants to get us back in the game and move up our timetable. We have great contractors and subs and IKEA ran a big sale on kitchens just when we were ready to order. If it were not for the architect, I'd say the gods were shining on us (not counting the almost to be expected rot), but he really has soured the process and made us want to kick his you know what. I bet if you speak to anyone here or in the other forums, you will hear similar horror stories (just maybe differing levels of horror, lol). You are not alone!

Wildchild, please come to North Dakota and be my general contract manager! ...I'm not planning on a back splash piece behind the counter top. It will be the flat top only; that will save some depth. The walls will have ceramic tile. ...What is "coved"? The walls are going to be removed, so the plumber can easily install a wall-mounted facet. From the flat wall, coming toward the center of the sink, how far does the faucet need to reach in? ...Does the facuet lenght need to stop before or after the drain hole? ...How high should the faucet be above the counter top? The Kathryn undermount sink comes in two sizes. The first is Exterior dimensions: 23-3/4"L x 15-5/8"W Interior dimensions: 21-3/8"L x 13-1/8"W The second is: Exterior dimensions: 19-3/4"L x 15-5/8"W Interior dimensions: 17"L x 13"W Would this be too small for a useable bathroom sink for washing hands, faces, and brushing teeth? Also, Kohler offers a deeper (4 1/2 inches) 17x13 Katheryn sink without the overflow holes. Would this work in the bathroom? If I mush have overflow holes, I want them installed so you don't see them when you stand at the sink. I'm so glad I already purchased the toilet!

Trend, as far as I can judge, is gold, copper, and flat black. Of course other finishes are widely used by most. But I wouldn't worry about trends so much. What I would worry about-is how my chosen finish going to look like. For example chrome or nickel look good both in cheaper options and in more expensive ones. Brass or gold or oil-rubbed bronze can be extremely beautiful, but then they would cost more. And if they are cheap they sometimes won't look that great. I think some level of mixing finishes is perfectly acceptable, and can ever be extremely beautiful at times, but requires confidence and good eye. But if for example you are going with dark levers, black or bronze, and the hardware in bath is pewter or nickel-I think it will work. If levers are black and hardware is brass-would also work. Now, mixing "silver" finishes and gold ones-here I'd be more careful, because that's much harder to pull off. My preferred finishes are copper, polished nickel, antique silver, antique brass, pewter..all of these usually require special order and longer lead time, just something to keep in mind. I went with polished nickel in master bath-frankly, if I knew it'd be such a pain, I'd reconsider. As for the contrast-I think bronze or black would look amazing with white doors. Unless you have doors that you dislike so much you'd rather unsee them..:) I hope to see other answers here too, choosing hardware is an interesting topic.

Mark - ha ha, I'm guessing you don't like a black/white home. Patricia, I don't have any photos as we just broke ground. I've been trying to find photos with the different looks. I was thinking the black hardware on white doors would look like a checkerboard, but I keep seeing it online. That's why I'm thinking polished nickel which is what we like and I think they are more of a timeless look, but want to hear/see from others. Thank you!