Well, I do think there is a problem with that pic you linked, jama. The inspiration island and your virtual feel like furniture to me, quite fine. While I always think of function first, in this case, the BB gives me a sense of disconnect. I also wonder about the BB getting used and more rustic looking over time, thus widening the gap in formality. Personally, I don't agree with the decorator about the piece looking odd without wood. I am trying to see his/her point but I just can't. Did this person give you a reason why? If the pronouncement cannot be backed up with some kind of explanation, I tend to move on. You mentioned in the first post that you can't do soap stone because the room is too small. I would not rule that out just yet. Another way to look at the "too-small" issue is to think in terms of avoiding busy-ness. I would consider avoiding the highly speckled granites or things with lots of movement. Unless you love the look, that mid-tone speckled granite on BP's first and last big pics is what I am talking about. (Thanks BP for providing all the illustrations!) If you go for a more serene look, you may be able to pull off a darker color. Using one material for both perimeter and island, you'll have fewer changes and that may also be better in a small space. I have seen very small kitchens done in dark colors that are just smashing. Think jewelbox. I happen to love the dark island with the dark glossy top in one of the pics above. Then, you could do marble on the backsplash. (I would like to see you have your honed marble!) In fact, I would encourage you to go fall in love with some marble backsplash tile and then revisit the countertop decision.

Hi Sugarski, I also had an old dark cherry kitchen with white formica countertops. Even though the 19 year old cabinets had some wear and tear, water stains, scratches etc... I really liked them and wanted to keep them for my remodel this year. I have never done furniture refinishing in my life so really didn't know what to do, but I knew the first step was to clean them up. I used a mild wood cleaner with a soft cloth and for stubborn greasy buildup I used a 0000 fine steel wool. After cleaning them up, I had lots of scratches and areas of water damage where the finish had been removed. I bought some Minwax Wood Finish Stain Marker pens at Lowes. They look just like a regular marker but you can get them in a variety of wood stain colors. The Red Mahogany 225 was the best color match for my cabinet stain. I spent 2-3 days just touching up all the scratches, nicks and raw wood spots on my cabinets. I let the stain soak in good but would wipe up any excess that got on the rest of the cabinet. The stain pen really makes an amazing cosmetic improvement. I'm sure a regular cabinet refinisher would have sanded down the fronts, reapplied stain and some type of finish sealer, but I wanted to see if I could get acceptable results with my quick method. After the atain had set over night I used a wood polisher liquid on a microfiber cloth to softly buff and shine the cabinets. They really did look good after that. I will be keeping a close eye on any new damage or stains and try to address them right away from now on. But so far I have had several people tell me they like my "new" cabinets not realizing they are the 19 year old originals :) Oh and btw... I was worried about granite being too dark also, but I LOVE my granite! It has just enough color variation with light creams and browns that I don't think it darkens the room at all. I like it so much better than the old white formica :) Original 1989 Kitchen: New Kitchen Remodel 2008: (still in progress) Kitchen Cabinet before Cleanup: Kitchen Cabinet After Cleanup and new Hardware:

First things first: PAINT with WHITE PRIMER. Yes. Just get the walls READY for a new colour. Primer is SUPER cheap and SUPER USEFUL. It gets the walls ready for the EXPENSIVE paint...without pay for expensive paint+primer. Once you have the yellow walls covered you will see the REAL colour of the house. The kitchen really needs to have the yellow taken off the walls. And get the tiles off the backsplash. The other SINGLE option: new counter top. But I would only decide on that once I had gotten all the warm tones off the walls. For me the biggest issue for the house is the tile-like flooring. I'm hoping they are vinyl...that would make for an easy removal. If they are real tile...they will be expensive to remove and deal with. But first things first: cover your yellow walls with white primer. You will be amazed at how different the wood looks when it is not being washed with more yellow.

Good question:), recently, we got all the walls painted white as we wanted the house to be bright. We did not think much about each detail then. If we start thinking of kitchen walls, we would have to consider living room walls too as it is an open concept floor plan and it would become a bigger project of painting walls that we just undertook. So I thought we could start with just the kitchen and do the cabinet paint and other hardware changes that have been overdue.