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.

Here ya go! The knobs on the bottom lazy susan area bother me, as the others are all handles around it. I like them on the sink cabs though. I like the knobs on the uppers to the right of the sink. Are there two cabs to the left of the sink that there could be knobs on also? So it would be the uppers flanking the sink and the lowers beneath the sink? Is that a narrow cab or a pull out drawer to the left of the stove?

Hi Michelle, Welcome to the Forum and out of lurkerdom, and congratulations on the new house. The colors of your surfaces and their ability to reflect light become very important when there isn't a lot of light. Light horizontal surfaces with darker cabinets generally look lighter than dark horizontals with light cabinets. I'm not getting which color you meant in the cabinet picture. Is it the middle one between the white looking one and the maple looking one? Medium brown with dark cracks? If so this is a nice medium light with just that touch of dark to bring up the color. To help make things look lighter, while having the color depth you want, I'd suggest one of the Crystallines. The Crystalline Pearl would be a great choice. It's not as dramatic as the Shell or Dune, but those are medium browns as are your cabinets, and you probably want more contrast. On the other hand, since your husband likes dark, and so do you, you could choose something dark that you both love and make up for it with really good, energy efficient lighting. Are you going to put in undercabinet lighting? Good luck! JC

Thank you. I agree. We tried to simulate paint colors on Ben Moore website and didn't like how the greys looked with the cabinets. We are leaning toward BM golden straw for the entire first floor to go with the floors and cabinets. Will it be too yellow? And for the granite we looked at Tanami( recently found out it's also called giallo ornamental). It looks creamy with brown specks on it. Would love to hear comments on these selections. Hard to visualize everything but hoping it will all come together in the end.