Thanks. I don't comment on fixtures often, but I do have to say I think the Memoirs is a lovely sink. The sink itself is large, the wide rim I absolutely love, and it has a good-sized bowl. It is indeed a nice sink. We had the same feelings over the backsplash. We went back and forth between painted wood or teak. I thought the teak backsplash would make the Memoirs pop more due to contrast, but my wife didn't want too much wood grain in the room. So we did painted wood which I topped with a teak cap. If my wife ever did want teak, I told her I'd simply glue a teak veneer over the painted wood. It's still painted. That run of cabinetry changed a couple of times during the design process. It was originally going to be a spacious 2-sink vanity. My wife really insisted on one sink! So that freed up space for the floor-to-ceiling storage closet on the left and what we call the "toilet pantry" on the right. The design has worked quite well for us over the years, I built it around 15 years ago. My daughter, who was 7 or 8 years old at the time, designed the profile for the toe kick cutouts. That was quite a bit of fun "working" with her. If you go in another direction, no worries. Choose what works best for you.

Okay. Update on removing countertop(s). We took the first (of 2) countertops off. Abbisgram, you were correct, and there were only a few screws attaching the top. All came out easily except one which was impossible to get to without disassembling the whole cabinet, so we got out the sawzall and took care of that one. Decided for several reasons not to special order countertops. We bought a sheet of 3/4" plywood (4x8), had it cut in half lengthwise, and that will do all the new countertops. Got the first one on and will need to put the tiles and edging on. Regarding the comment from the guy at Lowes: He was correct in the sense that the cabinet was very flimsy; however, it didn't 'fall apart'. The front (where the doors are attached) is pretty standard, however the sides of the cabinet are 1/8" (at most) luan, and there is no back piece at all, just a 1x2 strip fastened to the bottom of the (old) countertop, then screwed to the wall. Thankfully, the shelf inside the cabinet seemed to help keep it all together til we got the new top on it. Once the new plywood was on though, it is as sturdy as it was before ... lol. Not sure if I mentioned that this is not our full-time home, it's a mobile home that we purchased in a resort town, so we are not there to work on it every day. Hoping to go back next week and remove/replace the 2nd countertop, then cover them. Bottom line is that it wasn't nearly as scary as the Lowe's guy made it sound. And thanks, abbisgram, for the encouragement. :) As a side note, the finished countertops will end up costing under $100 for approx. 13-14 feet of countertops. I'm not the best at taking pictures, but will try to post some when we finish. This post was edited by danandcarol on Sat, Sep 27, 14 at 22:44

I am not any further on the counter :) But I am still planning on using the ply as an underlay. Unless I don't, lol. The soapstone that I have on hold has a small ding in the surface. I can repair it by using epoxy and ground soapstone "crumbs". Then when dry it sands nicely and you really don't see it. I haven't actually bought the stone I have on hold, but its not going anywhere. They might have other remnants soon. I think I will drive there tomorrow and reassess the "ding" and maybe just go with it instead of waiting for something else to turn up. Just got the under cabinet LED lights installed today. I am still working on the crown at the top. I have one length in and have to cut a piece to finish it up. The space is to tight for me to fasten the crown as instructed. I am using extra strong velcro, that will hold 1lb/sqin. It has been working well for the top crown. I used velcro to attach the filler strips to the 2x4 backing at the ends of the cabinets too. It was great. The instructions for my style of crown have you attach the crown at the bottom of the uppers in a way that is not a good method. They have you directly screw through the bottom of the crown and up into the cabinet box. There is a narrow foam strip that gets applied between the crown and box which looks like it is used to block the gap between, so under cabinet lights don't show through. The foam works, but the screws don't finish flush. The screw heads are so obvious. I am going to back each screw out, one at a time, and counter sink the hole so the screw head will be recessed. Then I can cover the holes with a plug or wood filler. I would post a picture of my under cabinet lights but I haven't been able to post pictures for several days now. I don't know what gives.

I don't find island hoods as offensive as Sina seems to. I've included some inspiration photos below. Yes, there are some potential issues putting a cooktop on a peninsula or island. One of the biggest is ventilation, since a lot of people opt for down-draft ventilation, which is not very effective and produces the kinds of problems OneRidgeOff reported. Using and island hood will adequate capture area will address that. The other key issue is safety. There is more traffic around an island or peninsula, and often seating, which puts non-cooks in closer proximity to the danger zone than is usually true if the cooktop is on the perimeter. This isn't insurmountable, but you need to be mindful to have enough of a buffer between the cooktop and wakways and seating. Both the pic below do this well: the first looks like it has at least 2 ft, maybe 30 inches of counter behind the cooktop and similar on either side. The second uses the raised bar as a buffer between counter seating and the cooktop, and the cooktop is at least 2 ft from either end of the island.