Thanks Bill - I may sound a little confused about carrara/calacatta. My floor tile, shown here with a possible counter option, is called statuario veneto, but it has a noticeable amount of pale brown veining: I think HD does call the porcelain in my first post calacatta. So I was pretty surprised when it coordinated so well with the floor tile. (I could go with the floor tile's companion gloss tile but it's pretty expensive and I would not be able to return it like you can with HD tile.) Anyhow, I was wondering about beeps' concern about the chair rail gathering water/scum. Bill, you seem to like using chair rail. Any problems with it?

If it is WM and sealed (or you can seal your sample quickly with a sealer from the hardware store), then I think you will have a good sample for testing. I have had absolutely no issues with my WM (even with the port!), and if you like the cross-cut one better, it's the same stone, so I would think it would hold up the same. WM has that stripey pattern, and the cross-cut one has a more swirly pattern. If this really is the stone you want, you might have to do some hunting. It took me a while to find a pretty slab for my island; I was looking for subtle colorations, no jaggedy crazy thick black lines. I was frustrated after a trip to the 3 stone places that my GC sent me to. So I had to figure out a better strategy. I took a whole day off work, got an after-school sitter and hit the road, visiting every single stoneyard that google gave me in the Houston area. After that I eliminated almost all of them, settling on 3 yards that seemed like someone there knew what WM was, and had a friendlyish sales person who said they would text/email when WM came in. 1 week later, there were 3 slabs of absolutely gorgeous WM at one yard, so I put one on hold for my island. Done. Well that yard did not honor my 7-day hold and sold all three slabs to someone else 3 days later. My GC was arranging the transport of the slab to the fabricator when they told him. Ugh. Fast forward 3 weeks, a friendly sales person from one of the other yards had stayed in touch with me and would email me when she learned that there was going to be a shipment on WM. She even had her buyer from Brazil email pics to her and she would forward them to me. This went on for a couple of weeks. She texted me that there were some 3 cm slabs of WM coming in. I went down to see the slabs and they were horrible, huge yucky thick black lines. Just ugly. 1 week later she said there were some 2 cm slabs that just arrived. I wanted 3 cm, but I went down to see. I found a nice 2 cm slab with subtle coloration and no big thick black lines. Now it's in my kitchen. And I didn't have to buy it from the mean stone people who "stole" by original slab. The rest of the kitchen was pretty much done by the time I finally found my WM and got it installed. So for several weeks we just used the plywood island that I asked my GC to install so that I could cook and feed the kids. River White was my next choice if I hadn't been able to find WM. Please let use know how your tests go with the sample.

@Brenda Hagel do you mind me asking what the cost of your countertop was? My kitchen looks like a similar size (maybe a bit bigger), and I love the look of the Calacutta Marble but am worried it will be considerably more expensive than a regular Formica laminate. Does anyone know the difference in cost between regular laminate and the 180fx series? Is the 180fx still a high pressure laminate? Thanks for your help. P.S. I am in Canada, so please specify if talking about USD or CAD, thanks!

I agree w/Jan. I like them but I think it's too heavy looking. You have a lot of black (which I like!) but those are very dark/heavy over the island. This one works because there is a tone of white in this kitchen compared to yours. (BTW, I think you should ditch your chimney vent and do something like this one, or the other in the pics I'm going to show you. Especially w/a wood trim piece. Very similar to yours, color-wise. I think these lanterns are thinner These pendants seem a bit lighter than yours. maybe it's because of the thinner, charcoal metal color I really like these Hood Classic Pendant lights. (they come in tons of options w/color and globe glass) I don't think your plain black sconces are the best choice BTW, and idea for you pantry door. do a salvage wood w/glass (to break up that solid run of cabinets) or, you could do a door like this painted to match your island. do you like the rattan chairs? they have black. I paired them here w/a black woven material. (you could also do the natural color) A lot of black in this one. I like these sconces and pendants. the runner is nice too Tried to photoshop this one. And this is the vent hood cover you should get. or this one w/the oak trim piece. and I love how they put glass on those two cabs w/more wood. you could always go w/the silver lantern. Or, do a black hood cover. calacatta backsplash tile black and glass.