Well, it may have been "too good to be true" after all. The dealer that quoted the great price also has among the worst ratings in Washington Consumer Checkbook, along with numerous BBB complaints, and complaints with Fairfax County Consumer Division. Yet, this dealer has a "presidential award" from CARRIER. When I inquired with CARRIER as to what a dealer needs to do to earn such an "award", the response was "This annual award is designed to encourage self-analysis andreward individuals who have excelled in customer relations". Excelled in customer relations? They have to be kidding! When I inquired further as to whether CARRIER would stand behind the work of the dealer, the short reply was "no". Obviously, this is not the response I was looking for. it seems that CARRIER may be more focused on pushing hvac equipment out the door and not on customer service.

buehl-- I'm in Northern VA, but we have done the gamut of places here. Apparently, NSI in Glen Burnie is great, but expensive. We trekked to Avanti in Fredrick last weekend. You need an appointment on Saturdays, but they are open the rest of the week w/o an appointment. They had a great selection and were wonderful pulling slabs and such for us. In Virginia, we really like Eurostone and DalTile Stone. They are along the Rt 28 corridor and within about 20 minutes of each other. Both were very service oriented and had great selections. At Dal, the plant manager walked every stinking aisle with me with my cabinet door, helping me refine my thoughts, pulling slabs from the backs of piles, and really going out of his way to help. If you just want to wander and look, without help at all, try Marble Systems in Merrifield, VA (just off the beltway). They are low customer service, but they have a great selection to peek at.

We are in Leesburg and are working with Kitchen Intuition in Warrenton. It's a bit of a hike, but Andrea Rexrode is the owner/designer and is fantastic! I went out to her office once and haven't had to go back again (she's so creative and works well via email if you don't want to go out their too often). I should also mention that I worked with another kitchen designer for about 6 months and was near tears. My builder recommended I contact Andrea and within 2 weeks we were done with the house. She's fantastic (and, we have the same name, so I like her even more!) ha! I'm recommending her bc she actually works with custom cabinet makers and carries a few brands. She's been able to do our entire house for a very reasonable price using a variety of them (high end kitchen with some custom items, but maybe less expensive items for mudroom, laundry, etc). She's definitely worth a call - 540-347-3871 (and, I'm glad to send you what she did for us as well)

I strongly dislike painted wood. When comparing wood to painted wood - wood is always timeless - paint will always go in and out of style. We are building a new house and my brother in law just finished building his new house. He has grey kitchen cabinetry and an espresso island. He will be doing the white subway tiles as well. He has a ceiling full of canned lights that look like a space ship is about to land on you. Congrats - he has a standard modern American kitchen. I don't want a standard American modern kitchen that EVERYONE else has. I want old world. I want the warmth of old world. My brother in law's kitchen looks like a modern, industrial cold kitchen. In our kitchen, we will have simple colonial maple cabinets stained pecan (dark brown). They are beautiful and the grain makes the cabinets have depth and character (not like a flat paint). Our island will be a lighter stained maple to add brightness to the kitchen. There will only be 2 upper cabinets left open for glass or for a mesh (I haven't decided yet). There will be some open shelving. The lighting is all dimmable and and the lit areas are on separate circuits so I can affect the mood. I have pendants over the island and a pendant over the kitchen sink. There will be 2 sconces as well. None of the lighting can be sourced from a big box store - and they are beautiful. It's been frustrating trying to gather all of the materials needed for my kitchen because almost all of the stores carry only the standard American kitchen stuff - and many of the designers/salespeople want to push everyone into buying into the "modern American kitchen style" that everyone else has. I puke on the modern American kitchen!