We also have a leathered surface to our granite. It's been installed now for a few months and so far, I've been very pleased with it. No issues with scratching that I've seen - although we're careful, our GC are less so. Also, haven't had any issues with oil, etc., but they did seal the granite also, which I would imagine helps. I LOVE that it has a "soft, warm" feel to it - it's hard to describe, but I love to touch our granite. Though it's hard - obviously, it's stone...it has a dimension that is difficult to describe other than being "soft and warm". I imagine that others with the same surface would say the same. I love that when the light hits it, we have physical texture (the areas where we have mica bits in it tend to be lower), so the main surface is matte, but the relief area (the mica) is shiny. One slight drawback - I wouldn't want to work bread dough or anything like that directly on the countertop because I think that little bits might get stuck in the crevices...but I haven't tested that and don't plan to really - I use cutting boards, etc. when I'm working with things like that. I did the same thing when I worked with our laminate style countertops too, so it's really no difference now. The picture I'm attaching shows a bit of the textural element of the leathered surface of our granite.

I have a question about adding photos to the gallery. Is it fair game to add pictures that came from another website? I have quite a few that I copied to my computer from other sites because I was afraid they would be removed. I'd love to share them here, but don't want to violate any copyrights.

This forum has been brought to my attention and I think I can add something useful. I'm Milton, and my wife Amalia and I are architects and interior designers with our own firm archspaces (archspaces.com) We have worked with moda cucina, as well as water and fire, as well as Weston kitchens, metropolitan, and others. We did two water and fire kitchens, and also three moda cucina kitchens. The water and fire kitchens ended up being beautiful, but were long agonizing ordeals to complete. The parts kept coming damaged, incorrect, wrong size/finish, from Canada and Italy. It was one excuse after another from water and fire and their suppliers who I ended up calling directly. Paul got a group of investors and partners together to buy into his moda cucina concept of locally made premium kitchens that can do not only traditional, but true european finishes. My wife and I loved the idea, if you look at our website you will see we are modernists. Each moda cucina went off almost flawlessly, with two minor exceptions, 1 kitchen which was somehow incorrectly measured. An entire 17 foot run of cabinets was re-built within 2 weeks and delivered before we even had to break the news to the clients. And one kitchen which had custom backpainted glass, the glass imparted a green tint to the paint and the client rejected the glass. The glass doors are being remade with starfire (crystal clear) glass. The response time has been fantastic, better than we've experienced anywhere, and the freedom as designers is tremendous, we've been able to think much more creatively with their custom work. I don't want to take away from the validity of what the disgruntled water and fire customer had said, it sounds inline with what happened there. The first few years we heard nothing but good things about them, then as they grew, and their suppliers got busier and moved away from small specialty producers, things fell apart. I gave Paul another chance, and we've been very pleased thus far. I've been to the shop and it is very impressive, it takes a lot of guts to put it all on the line and say enough is enough, and make your own factory. If anyone has any questions please feel free to email or call us through the contact information listed on our website.

Kristine, High Country Roses web site says 3-4'. Mine was put in 5/20 as a band and is between 1.5-2ft tall. It was completely cane hardy over the winter so this is one years growth. I fully expect it to get to the 3-4 ft. My Pretty Lady Roses say 3-4 ft and two of them are over 4 ft tall. About 4.5' I tried to get more of a straight on picture of the bush. It is a little lopsided as we did no trimming at all this spring. Here it is in relation to Amiga Mia, Iceberg and Dainty Bess. Amiga Mia and Iceberg are cane hardy. Dainty Bess is not so starts over every year. Here are the blooms in relation to my other flowers. I really feel like it is nice addition to my garden.