I just had 3 cm quartz countertop installed onto a completely serviceable set of 1979 walnut motif cabinets over a 50 foot x 2.2 foot wide kitchen cabinent run. (The only thing missing compared to today's products is the concealed European hinges/springs - happily I convinced my wife that my old hinges, although a bit old-fashioned, are serviceable, Counter guys came and templated the job putting a joint mid-point at the new composite white sink placement and at one side of the stovetop. The templaters were then the installers a week later. After they prepositioned the 3 pieces of ca. 500 pounds quartz pieces they called my attention to the fact that my cabinents were not level and proposed some "on the fly" leveling with wedges along the entire 50 foot run. Because that effort seemed to me to be unruly amd imprecise, I told them just to minimize discontinuities at the sink and cooktop joints while I wasn't looking. The project turned out great with an almost imperceptable lack of parallelism at the vertical at the front sink joint (This avoided shimming all over the place to correct a 0.5" runout error over the 50 foot run which except to a 0.16" modestly imperfect joint; because it is quartz, one cannot tell much by looking, but the level tells the story with which I easily live with!

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)

Do the counter all one level. The raised counter doesn't do much, except interrupt your expanse of work space. If you want to hide stuff in the sink, your deep Super Single you said you are getting will do that, and anyway, it's a kitchen for goodness sakes, and it will have dishes in the sink. It's not expected to look like an operating room. I also prefer the sink not to be centered in the island. But others feel differently. Again, it's an issue of keeping the counter expanse mostly uninterrupted for the greatest utility. If the sink is centered, then both the left and right sides of of the counter are shortened. If you can, try to have the sink towards one end of the island. Just MHO, it's not a deal-breaker, just a suggestion. Where will the DW be? I suggest next to the sink, rather than not in the island. The reason is that you don't want to have to carry dripping dishes from the sink across the aisle to the DW, so the DW needs to be in the island too.

the island is set apart enough from perimeter so don't worry about different material..... a medium brown quartz ?...on both tiers if you want to keep it two tiered. If you change to one level you can make more of a statement with pattern I think . Search for the right piece/material. Painting the island along with different counter will give you chance for more impact although the cabinets don't seem to need it....just different things can be done, as you know.