@enright5 - I know this is a few months after your initial posts, but I came across your posts while I was looking for photos of real life installations of Lyra and Lagoon Silestone. I can total relate to the original post. I love marble too and the look it provides, but it is not a good fit for my family. Knowing this I am not looking to trick people into thinking I have marble - just LOVE the general look and feel. SO what did you finally decide on?

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!

It really depends on the size of the island and it's prominence in the room. I have gray cabinets and Glacier White Corian countertops on all my perimeter counters. Since my kitchen is small (and enclosed), I don't have room for a "true island" so I have an Ikea island cart. It came with a solid birch top. The cart itself was in natural birch, but I painted it black as I wanted it to sort of "float" in the kitchen. I have oiled the heck out of the top and do it every 6 months or so. It warms up the wood considerably. I also have mid-brown hardwood floors. I'm not a "matchy" girl so I didn't want them to match and actually wanted the island top to be a bit lighter. The kitchen itself is "warmed up" by using polished bass pulls on all the cabinets, the warm brown hardwood floors, and by some display polished copper. That's really all it takes.

First - that is a nice kitchen! If you are trying to stay traditional and neutral, maybe something like below that has slightly different lines to give a bit of interest. If it were my kitchen, I would pick a lighter navy color chair with the legs to match the flooring.