ROTFL!!! You say there's nothing wrong "But sink is in the corner, appliances are older and there is no dishwasher, no place to put one with current layout & the vinyl floor has no more shine left. I think you've made the right decision. It's like the way I was taught to buy cars: Buy a good car for cash, new, without anybody else's problems, and drive it until it's ready to retire (minimum 10 years, current one is on 15). I spend a lot less on cars than people I know who buy a used one every couple of years. I planned my kitchen to last the rest of my life. The best way to choose granite is to go see it, especially if you can see it in natural sunlight. The best way to work out your layout design is to draw your space to scale as accurately as you can, mark the doors, windows, etc. Go to the manufacturer's websites to get the measurements for the appliances you want. Then post your plan here. Get lots of TKO (totally kitchen obsessed) eyes looking at it.

Loving my soapstone! At first, the wax the fabricator put on it seemed to create spots (like the wax coming off here and there) whenever I cleaned it. After a couple of weeks, it all evened out. At first I oiled it all the time...but I haven't oiled it in weeks, and love the feel and look too. To me, it's fun to play with it! My old kitchen was so terrible, falling apart at the seems..that now I am keeping the new digs pristine just because I love touching and looking at it all. Although I baby the counters, DH and the kids sure don't, and so far so good! The only thing I'd say about the upkeep is that we have hard water, so if I want the counters to look their best, I really need to make sure the soap is wiped off well and then the counters are quickly wiped dry...otherwise I see some residue (just like the shampoo that stubbornly stays in my hair, lol). But hopefully if we can get a water softener installed soon, it won't be a problem for long.

yeah it does not seem like many people know about hansemm. I saw some posts for yorktowne and they are rated ok. price-wise I am about the same but with more features on the hansemm. I dont think you can wrong with them if you do the 3/4 ply option instead of the particle board sides. Yorktown uses thinner plywood sidewalls on all of their cabinets and they seem to be more stock sizes and more costly to customize.

If the foregoing is not enough reassurance, then be assured that you are not the only one who does not like stainless finishes and that plenty of folks like their appliances in white. Some internet searches will turn up postings and articles about preferences for white and or other colors of appliances over stainless steel. It is simply personal preference. One thing to note -- as 3katz4me mentions -- is that a lot of stainless refrigerators and ranges actually might be better characterized as black appliances with stainless front fascia. Another thing I've observed in my town is that some of the margin of preference here seems attributable to folks mistakenly thinking that other folks so overwhelming prefer stainless finishes that selecting anything else will somehow ruin a home's resale value. Where I live (in the rural west), stainless is merely a somewhat more popular personal preference. The margin of popularity is not huge. Hereabouts, a lot us wind up with stainless appliances because we can tolerate it when we find a deal. Case in point for me: my personal preference runs to old-fashioned appliance white but, when I needed to buy a new fridge several years ago, I wound up with a stainless Kitchenaid because Lowe's had the stainless models on an overstock sale for $200 less than the white version I otherwise would have purchased. Then, like 3katz4me, I wound up with a stainless stove simply because the models I wanted were not available in colors. I say go with your personal preferences.