terrilynn, I am confused about what to do for the island and also the desk/coffee bar/bar area. I'm going back and forth on wood or soapstone for the island. I'm pretty sure I want wood on the desk and soapstone on the bar/coffee area. (just for maintenance purposes). I'm not sure if I do the base colors on the other areas the same as the island or different. We aren't doing any stainless except for the range, but that desk is pretty cool! Lavender, thanks, and I love the idea of red accents. I hadn't really thought that far, but that will be perfect and will blend with the rest of our house. I guess I need to figure out if I can really do the painted island and how much maintenance that will be. Here are my options, in case anyone else is as confused as I am: 1. Wood colored island with soapstone top 2. Sage/light green island with soapstone top 3. Sage/light green island with wood top Desk: something with a wood top....I'm thinking base should match the island, unless of course the island base is wood tone, and then it would either match the yellow cabinets or the coffee bar area. Coffee bar/bar: definitely soapstone top- either yellow cabinets like the rest of the kitchen, green, or wood colored. I'm even confusing myself, so if anyone is following this, I'm impressed, and thank you for any thoughts!

I would love to see how it turned out. We're doing a very similar renovation. So far our walls are alabaster and we've only purchased lower cabinets. I painted them Mindful Gray (BM). We just purchased our counter tops yesterday and they are unfinished butcher block. So now I'm panicking on what stain to use on them (our floors are Allen + Roth Russet Oak Laminate). I don't want the floors & counter tops to be too matchy and I'm considering just oiling them without staining. So many decisions!

Granite in a kitchen in a house valued at $100,000? NOPE, that's a waste of money. You won't begin to recoup what you spend for it. And everyone is changing out their tile countertops, at least from what I see on this site. (It's that grout, who wants to clean the cooking dreck out of the grout?) I would consider NOT buying a house with tiled countertops in the kitchen, all other things being equal. Some people really prefer stained cabinets over painted. I can like the look of either, but unless you get a true pro to do the job ($$$), it's going to look cheapened. Those cabinets look fine to me, and would not dissuade me from making an offer. It's the curb appeal (driveway) you may want to be focusing on. Oh, and see if you can bleach the floor tile grout in the shower as white as possible - or see if there is a way to make it all look like it's supposed to be one light sand or gray color of grout...

The challenge here is a garage door that takes up half of the front of the house. Not easy but I would tone it down as much as possible. Another thing you might do in the future is think about a garage door with windows across the top to break up the "wall" of garage a bit.