I only saw your posting the other day. I was struggling with the same decision. I finally found one my husband and I both REALLY liked. It is called Giallo Antico. It is a tight pattern (not busy). Relatively neutral in color and looks great with the multicolor tile. It compliments it instead of fighting for attention. :-) The floor is the Star of the show! We Love That Slate. Another granite we liked really well was Cafe' Imperial. Beautiful But dark brown and it wouldn't work well with our dark cabinetry. Good luck. Post Pics when you can.

It was more that I was soooo excited to have such a great kitchen in a house that was in our price range and I saw it as "wow, I might have picked all of this myself... except for the counters." I really love shaker cabinets and although natural maple wouldn't have been my first choice, it wouldn't have been my last either. From the moment I saw the house I had in my head that the kitchen could be perfect if I just replaced the counters. I LOVE corian counters, I know most don't, but we had them in our first house and I really loved the surface. Then the list of things we wanted to do in "phase 1A" of making the house our own was formed and I just couldn't justify ripping out perfectly functional 1 year old counters because I wanted corian that would have cost nearly $5k. With that same $5k we did everything else in the entire downstairs, including new crown moulding in the dining room and living room, the wallpaper and borders, paint, the floor in the kitchen (the old one was just not functional for us) plus a bunch of plumbing work (some old house issues but also installing a whole house filter, slop sink in basement, plus running water and gas for washer/dryer on the first floor) and other assorted stuff. That money went a LONG way to making the entire house "ours" and frankly, if we had used them for counters i think the impact would not have been as great.... or rather that I managed to achieve just as much impact by changing just about everything else and leaving the counters as is. Unless anyone here has a small house and a huge pot of money I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about on that front. So no, I didn't care much for the counters when I first moved into the house but once I decided to work with them, I surprised myself by how much I ended up liking them. One thing I liked about the PO's kitchen (even though I didn't like a lot of his decor choices) was that it felt fresh and clean and I think the green counters contribute heavily to that. I figured out a way to work my favorite color, cranberry/pomegranite red, into the equation as well as that vintage coziness I was seeking using some of the better parts of my husband's coca cola collection and it all just sort of clicked. I love my house and I love that I've been able to do most things on a budget with a little creativity, some ingenuity and a LOT of patience. To get back OT a little bit, I think actually this is a benefit of a smaller house... yeah you might not have as much room to store materials but the scale of the projects being smaller allows you to save time and money on less materials. Our house is on the big end of small... well, frankly I don't consider 1900 sf to be all that small but we have many rooms, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, an eat in kitchen, formal dining room, living room, mud room and a fairly large front entry hall and we face a lot of small house challenges because with the exception of our kitchen, our rooms are on the small side... but when we were looking at homes I was overwhelmed at the thought of renovating larger homes. It felt like I'd never be able to get my arms around the whole thing. With a smaller house, there feels like there is an end in sight even with my snail's pace.

This is great info . Thanks I need to replace a 72" x 88" opening. I currently have one picture window along the top two picture windows on the bottom with a roll out window in the center. I'd prefer it to be one big picture window. Can you tell me what brand has the best price and energy efficient? Renewal by Anderson's bid was really high and Home Depot didn't offer a window that size.

Nkkp and LascaTX, Thanks for your reply. I've purchased a lot of things over the internet but none of them weighed over 10 lbs. So to say that I'm hesitant to order something that is shipped on a pallet and has a chance of breakage even though the box might not reflect it, scares me to death. So because of my very narrow-minded, unreasonable fear, I went ahead and purchased an E-Lux venthood from Sears. *don't roll your eyes at me* LOL The sones level is twice that of the Imperial at high speed but I figure this speed won't be used ALL the time. To further assuage my paranoia of electronics breaking (in massive, not-easy-to-box-up-to-return items such as a built-in appliances), Big Box afforded me the opportunity to add to their bottom line purchase an extended warranty of five years in duration. Because we all know that these things like to breakdown on day 357. Plus they do price matching and actually did one on-the-spot when they were proving to me that they shop the competition. So, unless I change my mind and cancel with Sears (which they have a most generous cancellation policy), I will not be able to add to the knowledge pool on Imperial or Kobe brand venthoods. : / But I will be able to on the following: GE Profile Induction cooktop 36", PHP960 Bosch dishwasher SHX4AP0 E-lux 36" venthood RH36WC60G Oven - yet to be determined ....at some nebulous time in the future as I've yet to sign with a GC. Getting close-r though. : D Pepper