So hard to decide. I love MP. I have MP. I love LdL too, but for me it seemed too cold and modern. I wanted a modern farmhouse vibe, so I needed more warmth which MP provided. I actually did walnut perimeter cabinets and painted island( a flip flop to your plan) which made it easier I think. The MP looks stellar on the walnut cabinets and on the painted(olive) island cabinetry, but IMO walnut countertop wouldn't look good on walnut cabinets so if I had down a walnut cabinetry island I wouldn't have considered wood there. I think that means I don't like your option 1 with the smaller island with wood cabinets and wood countertop-sorry) My original plan was MP on perimeter and walnut bb on island, but because I also have post and beam structural elements it seemed like too much going on so I simplified and went with a single countertop surface, all MP. I am quite happy with that choice- ecstatic actually. You are trying to make a lot of choices and thinking about alot of scenarios. I can tell you what I would do, but it might be better to figure out which stone you love and then, as Tim Gunn says, "Make it work" even if that means re-jiggering some of your other ideas. If you consider all your elements and potential elements and then figure out what you must have then you will know what to do or at least where to start. Now to add to the confusion, some things that popped into my head: Stainless backsplash behind stove would also look great. Where you have stainless countertop next to oven, you could alternatively do walnut butcherblock with embedded stainless steel heat bars. This would put the walnut on the white cabinetry which I think would look lovely. The island eating area and the eating area behind the sink could be butcherblock and everything else could be stone. Definitely go look at more quartz options to go with the MP. Think about which of the tones in the MP you would want to bring out, there is gray green gold, mine has purple streaks too. Would the Pebble go with the MP?

Advice appreciated! And thanks for the link, sum5463! The video on that page helps clarify, too, though that fridge is mostly hidden on the sides. (Oh, if only I were a blogger! I too would make a video where I was over-the-moon about my new free appliances!) Re: the cabinet color. I think the Benj. Moore "decorators white" is very slightly green, so there may well be a danger of dinginess against the "white ice." At least in sample size the paint looked smashing with countertop and backsplash materials, which are in fact being installed this coming week (huzzah!) The underside of the top cabinets is also being painted this week, before the undercabinet lighting goes in, but the cabinet faces won't be painted for a while yet, since the painter likes to be last. So I don't know if at this point I can change my mind about which white I want on the cabinet faces. Maybe I will just have to paint a cabinet door and trek to the nearest big city in search of a real live white ice appliance. I also have to think about whether the white ice "ipod" style cues will fit. Maybe -- the cabinets are simple in style, and my new breakfast-area light fixture will be pretty modern. It's such a huge change from the brown early 80s that it's hard to visualize, and I'm lousy at visualizing to begin with. Here follows a bit of rambling re: model choice. This model fits under the existing cabinets; other counterdepth models I have looked at tend to be a little too tall. Capacity is not an issue for me; in fact I have so much extra space in my current 18cf fridge that I store about a dozen large bottles of nonperishables like fizzy water -- because a fuller fridge is more efficient than a mostly empty one. Which reminds, me, some of those bottles have been in there more than a year. I probably should move them around! :) I thought about a 24"/apartment-size one as more suited to my own habits. I cook when I'm home, but I travel a lot, so I don't keep huge amounts of fresh food on hand. But I have a 36" x 69" space to fill. A smaller fridge, even the 28" x 65" one that's there now, looks awkward. And I'd have to buy a fullsize one anyway if I were selling the house. I want the side-by-side because I use the freezer mostly for single-serving leftovers; having those on shelves in plain sight, so that I can see at a glance what's there, is a bigger priority for me than storing large fresh or frozen things: there has never been an occasion when I wanted to put a pizza box or a sheet cake in my fridge. So I have really thought about usefulness; it's just that I use my fridge differently than people who find the french-door style useful.

sarapamela, are the "dove white" "white dove" colors getting mixed in your mind? I know they do mine! What brand are you talking about? I know SW AND BM have one and the other. But, what is "dove white" at BM is not like "white dove", or did I mix that up too? One brand is creamier, one is whiter. I have SW dove white (or is it white dove) on my trim, and it seems a lot whiter to me than BM other. Is that confusing enough? I'm very anxious to hear what color/brand you go with, I'm in the process of choosing as well. But I DID notice that in your first post, you called it BM's white dove, and then in the choice post, you called it dove white. So, is there a difference in choice? Or just words? LOL Crazy paint makers and their names!

robin, Thanks for letting me know the floors are oak laminate. It amazes me that I keep liking oak floors when I too had been dead set against oak floors due to not liking my veneer oak cabinets that came with my townhouse and this cheap oak engineered wood floors in the foyers that have very thick coarse grain in them that is very busy. Maybe I would even be open to an engineered oak floor that is not too grainy that is stained cherry. I also am still open to laminate but due to my cherry furniture in my office, I had my heart set on a cherry wood floor with tiled foyers. I just wish my foyers were bigger but I live in North Jersey and as single person needing a lot of square footage to have a big home office as well as lots of personal space, the stylish townhouse fit me better. If I sold my townhouse and moved south, I could get a really nice house with a big beautiful foyer but I am realizing being alone, I am not yet ready to move with my clients here an my clients are so nice. The location I live in is expensive and I chose this townhouse over the house with more land and more bedrooms that was the same price due to the location not appealing to me. Thanks also Robin for letting me know the paint color. It truly is very neutral and may be nice in my home office to warm up the walls. I will try a sample out when I am ready to repaint. I love all my window treatments in my home I chose except for my first choice that is in the home office. I dislike the long strings of my Alta (a division of Hunter Douglas) double honeycomb blinds since they are always messy and tangling. I dislike the neutral color I chose (an off-white with a taupe faint design in it that looks great in the day time) at night since the blinds then appear gray. I wish I went with the 3/4" size pleat rather than the 1/2" size pleat. But I did not make these mistakes again and I learned that it is worth paying a little more for retractable cords or continuous loop cords or going cordless if you are tall (I am not). When you are ready for blinds, let me know and I will take pics of my other window treatments that I love especially my Champaign colored Shangri-La sheer horizontal blinds in my family room that has a cathedral ceiling and a wall of windows. The blinds really make the room so bright and happy and goes so well with the Bone White walls and bright white trim. Everyone who sees them loves them. I also love my retractable corded top-down bottom up Architella black-out Duet blinds in the linen color in my bedroom softened up with crinkled soft white sheers around them.