If you have trouble visualizing what you'd like but "know it when you see it", then at this stage you should probably just look at as many stainless / dark cherry kitchens as you can and see which countertops and flooring "grab" you. In my case I knew I wanted simple, natural cherry cabinets and stainless appliances and probably a wood floor, but that was it. Looking at lots of pictures helped me narrow things down, so now I can at least have intelligent conversations with kitchen designers. I'd suggest going over to houzz.com and entering "stainless steel dark cherry kitchen" into their search box and looking through some of the hundreds of results you get. It's a great source of ideas. After you see some you like, you can probably come up with more words to add to the search box to narrow things down. You can also go to google and enter "site:gardenweb.com dark cherry stainless" and you'll find lots of threads on this site too. I don't know of a way to limit it to threads with photos, unfortunately. Laura

Hi Kateskouros, I think it's a lovely idea as the honed tends to lose some of it's drama of the veining and the backsplash would be a great place to show it off! I think I saw early pics of your slabs and they are beautiful! One thing to think about, our polished countertops have been in now for 5 months and still look fabulous, even have stood up to spills that I thought it wouldn't. Now, we have an etch or two, but they are small and nearly impossible to find. We used a polished marble backsplash tile - Thassos and I put a different sealer on it than is on the counters. Remember, on the backsplash, you can use something that is more durable and not necessarily food safe because you aren't going to prepare your food right on it. The sealer we used sits a bit on the surface, I would not have liked on the counters because it takes away a bit of the glorious marble feel. I don't care on the backsplash a bit and it makes everything wipe off beautifully! As for stains or etching on the backsplash, we don't have either. Good luck! I can't wait to see your end result because so far your selections sound lovely!

Hi, I just don't see that backsplash tile with the Eternal Calacatta Gold at all. I think you might want to reconsider that choice. Are you trying to play up the taupe colour in the Calacatta Gold to go with your paint choices etc? If so, then I'd suggest a plainer tile in the taupe colour. It could be ceramic or glass, or even stone. You can get backsplash made of natural Calacatta Gold marble. I've seen it next to the Silestone and it looks quite nice - not competing at all. I think you could stand a bit of a pattern since your cabinets are white and the counter is quite white too. If you want something a bit busier, I saw this one the other day, together with brass coloured hardware - it was quite pretty - depends on your kitchen and if the tile might take over and be busy. As far as a glass tile goes...this taupe colour may not be quite right....but gives you an idea of what might work. I also like this one with a crackle finish. I think it looks fantastic and really goes a long way to add a bit of colour to both the counters and the cupboards

It would be very difficult to keep an existing backsplash with a countertop replacement. If you're selling the house, I wouldn't spend the money on replacing Corian with granite. You probably won't get the money back.