MWK Bear -- I think that kitchen sounds great...the Rubrik doors will make it pop. I too think the Curava counters look great--very Terrazoesque. I'd like to know the PPSF as well--recycled glass typically costs 2-3X more than Quartz and Corian in my experience so I would be interested to know. BTW, many granites are actually cheaper than most other premium products these days. Also, I noticed the Curava stuff is made well so it will have the durability of Quartz and Corian. A similar product I ran accross, called IceStone, is basically made with a concrete filler which is a huge pain to take care of and is not very practical as a countertop given all the maintenance required. Terri--I agree. Corian is not shiny...it has a matte finish to it, one of the reason we selected it. This post was edited by ChrisInSD on Thu, Jul 3, 14 at 1:58

We remodeled our kitchen in April 09. We have Thomasville cabinetry and I have been very happy with them and I thought after searching many other cabinetry places that the price was right. At Home Depot they are offering great incentives..like free sink base, $4,000 off order. 50% off the glazing which we did have done, 5 Free pull out drawers. I was able to get many more upgrades because of the money they had taken off. All the drawers have been automatically ugraded..1/2inch sides. Also all drawers have the slow close mechanism which is another upgrade that is now considered their standard drawer. The boxes all arrived safely and if there were any problems they just shipped out the new piece no questions asked. I used my own installer ( my brother in law) so I felt I got a great deal esp if you want to order...and install yourself. I can send pictures if interested. I did spend many hours with the Home Depot cabinet expert to decide what I wanted...there are many decision to make as you know. There was a couple design mistakes that they fixed and reordered a different size drawer etc. The cherry wood with black whiskey glaze is beautiful and I love the full overlay which usually makes the cost so much higher. I did have a problem with the decorative hood I ordered..Thomasville has a smaller hood and I wish they had more sizes to choose from...also the vents that home depot sells to fit the hoods do not have enough CFM and I thought I might have to do without it but my installer made it work by adding to it and making it come out longer over my burners. I also bought the fan from Vent a hood because I have a wolf dual fuel oven. That is one of the down falls of designing your own kitchen and not having the convenience of custom made pieces. It all worked out in the end and we couldn't be happier. Look at their deals online or go to Home Depot. I also used a o% interest card for most of it for a year.

@tmnca My floors are Goodfellow Original - Nature Series - Maple in Sierra The more you order, the more the price goes down. I paid a little over $4/sq.ft. It took me forever to find one I liked. I visited almost every flooring store in the nearby city. I literally spent months looking at samples. The sample of my flooring that I saw didn't have much variation but I like the colour. When I started opening the boxes for install, it had a ton of variation which was exactly what I was looking for so I was really happy. Opening each box was like Christmas for me haha! They look the best at night under my recessed lighting. It's almost as if it brings out features in the wood that you can't see in natural daylight. It does scratch easily though. Not scratches that you can see (although I did put a massive, extremely noticeable one in my kitchen but that was entirely my fault) but ones where if you look at them on an angle in the light they show up. Regardless, it's not going to stay perfect forever. I'm still in love with them. If you are installing flooring yourself and it has a lot of variation, it's not like just slapping down a floor. My husband and his cousins were doing it and I had to be there to select each piece to go down. It made it more time consuming but you don't want a bunch of plain pieces all bunched together. Just like the variations in the wood, you have to do variations across the floor. For places like the kitchen where the cabinets would be sitting, we put the most plain pieces down and saved the variation ones for places that you can actually see.

" I actually don't blame the GC. He built what was on the plans." Nope. He doesn't get off that easily. He should know better and be experienced enough to correct an architect. I've done it many times and they hate it. Here's a picture of wayyyy out-of-code winding stairs on a home I'm doing a countertop for that were built in the 90s. I can promise you the architect drew 4 risers pointing into that corner, that's what the framer framed, and amazingly, inspection passed. My customer is pregnant with her first, and the thought of a toddler taking a 29" step with no handrail in a couple years gives me the willies. Of course there is a landing and another set just like these, doubling her chances of injury. I would have told the customer I was sorry, but the bedroom door would have to be moved, because a 6" minimum tread width at the corner would require more run. Were I installing Katrina's cabinets, I would have refused until the paper pushers worked it out and backcharged for ruining my schedule. 'Cause when the red tags come flyin', everyone looks to not pay the guy who put it in wrong first, no matter who or what was drawn.