What wind,eh? The skys are very beautiful, especially from the N train over the River on my way from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Half my containers were blown off the table too! Now I've got everything on the ground, or tucked onto to chairs, in plastic baskets! standing out there reminded me of a poem from childhood: Wind on the Hill No one can tell me, Nobody knows, Where the wind comes from, Where the wind goes. It's flying from somewhere As fast as it can, I couldn't keep up with it, Not if I ran. But if I stopped holding The string of my kite, It would blow with the wind For a day and a night. And then when I found it, Wherever it blew, I should know that the wind Had been going there too. So then I could tell them Where the wind goes... But where the wind comes from Nobody knows. A.A. Milne

Either or. If the floor's way out of whack, you're right-- installing the vanity first will hide the wedge shaped gap and shims at the bottom. Usually, though, unless you've got a really bad builder (in which case you've got more to worry about than the vanity being level) or it's a 100 year old house, the floor's not going to be that far out of level that it can't sit right on the floor with no problem.

The stone is split-face Quartz with glass inserts. Do you recommend using the Impregnator instead? Absolutely. If it were polished instead of splitfaced, you wouldn't need to seal it AT ALL. Also, make sure when sealing the stone that you wipe the sealer off of the glass. Otherwise it'll turn white on the face of the glass. 1. Attach tiles to the wall using white thinset (any recommendations on a "high quality thin set bonding product"? Any modified thinset will work fine. DO NOT let anyone talk you into using mastic or premixed thinset!! 2. Apply Grout Release grout release = 511 Impregnator 3. Grout using sanded grout (any recommendations?) Not with split faced stone. Definitely use unsanded grout. Sanded won't get into the tight joints. Laticrete or Mapei are my favorites, but just about anything you find at the big box stores will do fine. Other than that, you should be fine.

If it's inset, the door won't actually be 24 inches, so I think you would be fine. For the island, if you want it more open then maybe you should lose the shelf. What about making a drawer on top deep enough for a second drawer inside? So you have one drawer front with two shallow drawers inside, there have been seval examples posted here lately. That would give you more space for small prep tools, foil/wraps, trivets, utensils, etc and capture back a little of the space lost by having one shelf underneath as only so much of that height will be useful space.