Yes, the splashlette is 2cm thick. My counters are 4cm so they had to fabricate the spashlette from a different slab. The whole installation was unplanned anyway due to their error in cutting. In re-reading your OP, I noticed that a 6" splash will come up to the bottom of the window sill. Is that right? If you go that route, at least you'll be lining the stone strip up with an existing element in the room so it wouldn't look so out of place. With a window 6" above counter, a little 2" strip of stone would leave abbot 4" of drywall. Would you like a little strip of painted drywall showing like that? I'm not much help. Just pointing out some issues on which to ponder. :)

The key fact is that with the system* pressure losses, even with reasonable MUA, the actual flow rate of the 1500 CFM fan on maximum will be a lot lower -- perhaps only 1000 CFM. I once calculated for my 1500 CFM-rated Wolf/Broan roof fan, with silencer, hood baffles, hood transitions, duct, bends, and some slight house negative pressure would intersect the fan curve at about 900 CFM. (This calculation was done in 2007 and I'm a bit weak on the details now, but active MUA is likely easier done controlling for a slight negative value than trying for exactly zero.) I use 10-inch duct, and aimed for the higher end of the 1000 - 2000 ft/min range due to the duct being in a cold attic (at least in winter). You can find representative fan curves somewhere on the Broan/NuTone web site. Wolf will send you some if you ask the engineer you eventually get to. Fantech has curve tables on their web sit for their various in-line blowers. All commercial up-blast systems have fan curves somewhere. If you want to get an idea of how fan curves work, try this exercise for the student. Take a piece of graph paper (if it still exists) or print one from a blank Excel plot. On the abscissa (representing CFM) establish a linear scale of 0 to 2000 and put a point at 1500 CFM. On the ordinate (representing pressure across the fan, i.e., system pressure loss) establish a linear scale of 0 to 2 inches, w.c., such that the two axes are the same length. Put a point at 1.5 inches. Draw a diagonal straight line between those two axis points. Note that these values do not represent any particular fan, only the nature of fan curves. Take a protractor and draw a quarter circle, centered at the origin, between those two points. Real fan curves for blowers designed to be operated at various speeds between min and max without hunting will typically fall between those lines and be monotonic everywhere (no dips). You will see for any curve between those lines that as the pressure loss increases, the CFM realized will fairly rapidly decrease. The fan curve typically represents full power operation. At reduced power the curve shrinks toward the origin. Pressure loss is a function of actual flow, so the effective resistance of the system loop is generally approximated by a straight line intersecting the origin and a CFM value point where the pressure loss was calculated. Because the baffles may be the biggest source of pressure loss and the least documented, this whole process is more of an estimation effort than an exact calculation, even when real fan curves are used and real duct calculations are performed. kas *System means the air-path loop from the cooktop to the outside and back to the cooktop.

Here is a mockup of an idea for your dining room and living room flip. Obviously, the final placement of the various pieces would depend on their size and necessary clearances/aisles, but this is the basic idea. You only really have two walls where the TV could go, so there aren't a whole lot of options. The orientation I chose makes the wood-burning stove a focus point, which I think is nice. I added a large coffee table between couch and loveseat, assumed a flat screen TV on the wall and added a rectangle in the new dining area to indicate a piece of furniture that could be anything, really (china cabinet, sideboard, bookcase, etc.). As for the kitchen, I went back to the open plan for this drawing. As you can see, having the dining area in the new location makes the seating in the kitchen somewhat redundant, although with kids I'm sure it will be useful. However, I agree with 3littlelights and others that this "open" plan still has you facing away from the open space for most of your kitchen tasks and is therefore not really accomplishing what you want it to accomplish. The layout of the sink, stove and fridge is also extremely awkward. What are the exact measurements of the wall with the sink on it? I know you said the windows were 72x36, but how much wall space is there between them and how much wall at either end? If there is no way to put the fridge on the same wall as the sink, then perhaps something like the plan below would work. It doesn't disguise the posts in any way, but it does give you a vastly better workflow and lets you face the open room while you are working at the sink (you'd want to move the dishwasher to the other side of the sink so it wasn't directly across from the oven).

It would look beautiful with white cabinets and white oak floor if not to dark as backsplash or extreme veining etc . I don’t see a whole lot of backsplash in diagrams you sent over in your question that would make an overkill look at all. Personal preference . The first pic with white cabinets and stainless steel appliances is very striking to me. I think it’s looks expensive and definitely an easier clean up versus a tile back splash. Good luck!