You guys (cawaps, particularly) are so SO so great!! This is what the floors look like laid down. The first pic is French Oak and is a good color (although DH thinks it's dark) but doesn't have much variation and is pretty rustic-looking, which I worry will look dated in a few years. The second pic also has charcoal on the walls but with American Oak installed. I'm worried the American Oak will look too golden, but it brightens up the place and has lots of variation (which DH likes). We'd do wide planks. What do you think?

Chihuahua6 - Here's something you may not know about my floors. They are actually prefinished hardwood that has been sanded down 3 times - once when we got conned into refinishing them with no stain (flooring guy said they would darken after the poly went on them), then at the start of our kitchen reno when the stain was the wrong colour, then the third time when they became the right colour. So all of the bevels between boards are sanded out (love this look), and if you get nicks and scratches they won't be white because the stain would have somewhat penetrated deeper than prefinished flooring. Yes, you can always use one of those wax crayon-y things to fill in nicks and scratches. What we do due to my dear DH, is if we get any signifcant gashes due to moving furniture, we kept some extra stain and he just sands it down and adds stain and poly to blend it in. When I get home later, I'll post some close-ups of our floors so you get a sense of what kind of dirt/dust and nicks&scratches to expect. I agree that if you buy prefinished flooring and intend not to get them refinished, you will have noticeable nicks and scratches. So I'd recommend getting either unfinished hardwood that you can stained, or like me, get finished flooring (make sure it's thick enough to allow at least a couple of refinishes down the line) and get it resanded and stained. The only thing to consider is you really need to air out your house since the smell is so strong. Plan to air it at least a few days. Good luck!

Oh, FYI...I'm currently re-doing my kitchen, and I'm having my cabinet doors made by Scherr's. Their door prices are very reasonable, IMO (less than Semihandmade, I'm pretty sure), and they will finish the doors in any Sherwin-Williams color you choose (as well as doing any door/drawer front in any size). I'm finishing mine myself, because I'm on a rather tight budget, but it's something to look into. You could add brighter-colored doors here and there if you want, or maybe have your peninsula doors be a different color, if you're worried about too much gray and white. I'm doing IKEA cabinets, and Scherr's is making me doors that look just like the Hittarp door (with grooves up and down the entire surface, no raised frame around them). Hittarp comes in off-white, so this way I can do white doors, and I built a shelf peninsula that's painted in S-W's "Oceanside." My toekicks will also be Oceanside, for a bit of fun and color in all the white. Orange is my accessory color--all of my countertop accessories (utensil holder, coffee crock, sugar bowl, knife holder) are Le Creuset's "Volcanic." I just haven't decided yet if I want butcher block countertops or black or white (or some other color, hee; I could paint laminate any shade and then seal with polyurethane or acrylic. I did that in a previous kitchen: the walls were pale spring green, the cabinets white with bright yellow doors, and I painted the old [1960s] laminate countertop a cool blue-gray and sealed with several coats of clear polyurethane. It looked awesome, especially with pale wood flooring throughout.) I hope that helps! Your kitchen looks gorgeous so far!

HI joshua123, The kitchen tile is from Pratt & Larson. It is a custom waterjet mosaic piece in marble. The color is a dark grey with a lot of variation. the exact color is bardiglio. the white boarder and interior boarded are snow white marble. kathy and Micah at pratt & lason were extremely helpful finding exactly what I wanted for our kitchen. I'll have to post a couple more pictures from a sunny day, as the ones I have posted dont really reflect the real colors. as far as style and mosaics being dated or not, I'm a firm believer that you should go with what you love and what speaks to you. you are going to be living in the house and walking into that kitchen every day. I dont think our kitchen mosaic looks dated at all, but I'm also not a designer. I can tell you it makes me happy when I walk in to make my morning coffee in that room. I did consider using more of that tile to cover the entire backspace area from the cooktop to the hood, as diana illustrated in some of her photos, to really give it a more modern look, but it was too expensive to justify in this house.