Alexx - I really love your kitchen! It came out beautifully!! I have a question about your counters. I am doing a similar look with the white shaker cabs (framed w/full overlay) and quartz (Caesarstone Raven) countertops. I will also be doing a mitered edge with a 1.5" overhang. My question is ... how far do your counters project past your cabinet boxes, as well as past the doors/drawer fronts. There is some dispute between my cabinet maker and the countertop folks. Cabinet maker says I should have a 1" projection past the doors/drawer fronts, while the countertop folks are suggesting a "flush" appearance (not truly flush, but more like a 1/4" projection). Can you tell me what yours are? And if anyone reading this has suggestions or advice, I would appreciate it! Thank you!

Back from the fabricator run today. I ended up finding one white that totally rocks (no pun intended). It's called super white and it's actually a quartzite which looks like white and gray marble and is stunning without the marble worries. Great stuff. Price? $90 sq ft. UGH. I think there is some room for negotiation so depending on where you go for searching for your granite don't be afraid to ask if they are willing to come down a little. Here's what it looks like: From Kitchen Design In the picture the super white is sitting on a white laminate counter (against a darker cabinet than you have) that is probably 30 yrs. old if not more. We just bought the house 3 mo. ago and the KD dated it to that. He couldn't believe it still looked so white and nice after so long. So there you go. High end (but not highest) white granite/quartzite price. There are medium range priced whites as well but you will have to see how they go against your cabinets. Anything with gold looked absolutely awful with the colors in the fireplace you can see from my kitchen. So make sure you take into effect any colors in your room when looking at the whites. Good luck! Have fun! Bring a camera and take pictures and bring home a piece to see how they look and TAKE YOUR TIME deciding!

Thank you! They are Conestoga cabs, the blue is SW Commodore (they go off the SW colors), they really are not *that* bright. :) I'm from NY too Audrey! When it came time for the backsplash I waived the white flag financially and decision making-wise. I love the water jet cut tiles a la Ann Sacks and such. I think they would look lovely with what you are talking about. Light blue or green are pretty. If you want to stick with white maybe milk white glass in a staggered brick pattern (not subway tile, they are different sized rectangles, I think I saw them at Tile Bar) But I do love me some subway tile. ;)

We're doing almost exactly what you're talking about. Butcher block on the perimeter (with the Domsjo double bowl sink too!) and an island with Carrara marble. Unfortunately we haven't made quite enough progress to give you a good visual yet, but hopefully soon. Hopefully... :) I like the visual contrast of the wood and marble, and it made sense for us to place it as we are for both functional and aesthetic reasons, not to mention cost! I really wanted some marble in our kitchen marble, but we don't want to over improve for our neighborhood, and incorporating it in the island works with our buget. Our kitchen is a 12.5'x16.5" L-shape layout so marble on the perimeter was cost prohibitive.