Here are some pictures of my bi-level island. Please forgive the mess on lower part - just got 2 new drawers added and trying to organize stuff, I have things out waiting to buy trays. The top doesn't collect stuff now that DD has a drawer for her art supplies. Though I do need a better place for tomatoes and bananas (empty hanger for now). And wish I could think of a better spot for coffeemaker. Breakfast bar (though I eat dinner there with kids when DH is away - as soon as I finish 4th stool maybe we'll all eat there) From FR (had to shut door to mudroom b/c the bench there collects our things - ignore junk on counter by fridge - more organizing to do, put her art stuff in our old "junk" drawer) Lower level (blue tape marking studs so we can nail in trim under plugmold - I'm finishing side pieces now)

I don't know what you intend to do regarding backsplash height (that's the distance b/w the finished counter and the bottom of the upper cabinet and light rail), but here's what I usually tell people when they're considering the height for their backsplash. The standard is 18"...regardless of the reasons why, it's still the standard.. How this affects your kitchen.... Refrigerator and other tall cabinet heights...Because wall cabinets are meant to be mounted at a standard height, cabinet manufacturers take this into account when designing tall cabinets. Tall cabinets are designed to be the same height as the installed wall cabinets so the tops all line up. When you change the height a wall cabinet is installed at, it affects cabinet top alignments. With the refrigerator you can usually mount the upper cabinet a little lower OR order a shorter upper cabinet, but be sure you don't make the alcove any shorter than 72" tall b/c newer refrigerators are 70" to 72" tall (and seem to get taller each year!) With other tall cabinets like oven cabinets and pantry cabinets, they're a standard height and designed so they're the same height as the wall cabinets when those wall cabinets are installed 18" above a 36" high counter. If you have custom cabinets, this may not be an issue b/c your cabinetmaker can adjust the cabinet heights. But, if you are using stock or even some semi-custom cabinets, you cannot change the height. You can often get taller cabinets for use w/36" or 42" tall wall cabinets, but not shorter for 30" mounted lower. But, even those that are taller are also adjusted based on standard wall cabinet heights + an 18" backsplash height. Small appliance height...Small appliance manufacturers often design their products to meet this 18" standard...for example, my KA stand mixer (bowl lift) is around 17" and many coffeemakers and blenders are just short of 18". So, you need to be sure you have room under the cabinets + light rail to fit those appliances. Small appliances... Keep in mind that if you're using an appliance on your counter, you must be sure you have room under the base cabinets to move that appliance around easily. Don't, for example, tell yourself you're only going to use it in front of your upper cabinets so you don't need to worry about its fit. In reality, you will be moving things around on your counter while you work and most likely your appliance will be moved under the cabinets at some point. You don't want to tear your light rail off or damage it (or the cabinets). Also remember that "standard" upper cabinets are 12" deep + 1" for the door...so they stick out 13" over your counter...leaving you only 12" or so of workspace in front of the upper cabinets...not much room to work in by itself! (If you have deeper upper cabinets...say 15", there's even less counter frontage in front of your upper cabinets...3" less, so 9".) Vertical workspace... Another consideration is vertical work...

I think the granite looks great: very classic and a big improvement over the tile! I'd definitely look into undercabinet lights. Before, the white counters reflected the ceiling light back up under the cabinets. The dark granite holds onto the light and makes the undercabinet areas a little cave-like. Lighting will make a big difference. I think the previous suggestions are excellent: painting the wall in the kitchen, along with finding some colorful accessories. I had a small galley kitchen similar to this one, and I was amazed at the difference a bright blue rag rug and a few blue dishtowels over the stove handle made.

Here are a some pics and my dilemma. Keep in mind this is my old fridge...new one comes today! Here is how we ended up with this: I have never had an enclosed fridge so didn't think about the peninsula dying into panels or how deep panels were going to be. I "semi" designed the new footprint and took it to Lowe's where the KD took over. (yes---I know......) Bought Schuler plywood with maple fronts cabinets. Although the kitchen designer had the model number of the fridge we were buying, which is a full-size, she designed the kitchen with 24" deep panels. She knew I was trying to have the look of an enclosed fridge. Being that I've never had an enclosed fridge, it was something I just didn't think of until the install started. Evidently she put a counter-depth in the design program because the elevation sketches she gave me showed an enclosed fridge. "Luckily" the panels actually came in wrong and were cut at only 23" for some strange reason and the installer caught it right away when looking over everything. Otherwise he probably would have installed them and I would be stuck. So called Lowe's to reorder the panels and somehow in all this it suddenly dawned on me that a full size fridge was going to be deeper and require deeper panels. I thought "no problem! Yay I can order them at 30!" By this time the KD had quit her job due to the pandemic. The other KD didn't know what was going on so we called in the Schuler rep. She was the one who immediately told me that those 30" panels would be sticking out in front of the peninsula. She asked if we could move the peninsula forward since the other side is an overhang for seating, but we couldn't since it would bottleneck the entrance into the kitchen down to under 36" and getting rid of an existing bottleneck was one of the reasons for the re-design to start with. So we had a dilemma. We cannot go down to a counter depth fridge which was the other option. What I decided was to split the difference and order 27" refrigerator panels. The fridge without doors is 29.5" so I will have about 3" of the side of the fridge sticking out which I don't like, but while I want my kitchen to look beautiful, I value the functionality too. The old fridge that you see in the pic sticks out a total of 32" The new fridge will stick out 34 with doors but without handles (4.5" of that is doors that would stick out anyway) Here's the really complicated part....we will be installing decorative panels on the end of the fridge as we have them on all the cabinets. This is how you enter the kitchen and I don't want that big blank space there next to the peninsula. The panels should be installed with just 1/4" reveal. I posted a photo below of how the panels look that are already installed on the side of the pantry that adjoins to a 17" high window seat. Luckily those face the opposite way from the fridge panels so you will never see both at the same time. I also posted photos of us holding up panels on the side of the fridge (they are NOT the right size panels...we have to order those still---we just used these to look at the right edge as to how wide to make the panels.) Also keep in mind we can remove the quartz backsplash piece if that would look better. That was not originally planned...the panels were going to sit directly on top of the countertop. So do we order the panels with just the 1/4" reveal to match the panels in the rest of the kitchen? Or, as the Schuler rep recommended, order the panels so they are the same width with the countertop, leaving about 1 3/4" reveal on the right side, but then your eye follows the countertop all the way up. I asked the countertop templater guy if I should just lengthen the overhang on the kitchen side of the peninsula to 2.5" to bring it out to within 1/4" of the fridge panel but he said no....I'm now thinking I should have insisted on it. Especially since we have full overlay cabinets that already make the overlay look very small since the 1.5" planned overhang is measured from the box, not the front of the drawers. Note how small the overhang looks to the drawers. And then of course, they had templated for a 1.5" overhang and I only got 1.25" UGH! Every quarter inch there would have made the reveal on the side of the fridge less. Suggestions appreciated! I'm hoping that I will eventually make peace in my mind with this issue and won't notice it but it is driving me crazy right now. I think of all the things that screwed up just because of this one error by the KD that I didn't catch and I am beating myself up for it!