Marybeth, I don't know if you frequent these forums anymore now since you have your beautiful kitchen completed. I have it in my favorites and was wondering what are the exact colors in your backsplash? I can not tell for sure on my monitor. I hope your enjoying the fruits of your labor 'cause it is soooooo beautiful~

it's a good open kitchen which will stand the test of time with island and your ss appliances. Personally, I would do almost anything but thermofoil. In looking at the Thomasville Nouveau choices I would pick the bamboo wafer or something similar...skip the two-tone struggle....and get a more quality material than white thermofoil. It's an open kitchen ...edges and texture , sheen, grain--- everything shows....... don't do thermofoil.

Thank you for your candor, I appreciate it. I had maple in the kitchen when I made the decision and I am disappointed that the floor didn't come up in discussions with the designer. I wanted a wood stain v paint and was wearing horseblinders to that bc it looked fine on the maple. But, they are here and pretty and I'm hoping for the best. The cabinet picture is in the original post and the floors can be any color I want. We are down to the subfloor in the kitchen. We will do rift/quarter sawn to calm them down and I do think they look ok. (Agree with you, though, not ideal.) The pic in the post right above yours is just in a showroom where I brought my cabinet sample. So do you rec we just do a 2 1/4 red oak like the rest of the house (and color as we want). Do you have experience with a medium brown and grey that gets most of the red tone out? I really would like it not to be too dark. But ok with something like jacobean with a grey?

We moved to Florida from NY. The house we bought was so dark inside because of large overhangs from the roof which blocks sunlight and a large lanai running across the back wall which has a roof, no sunlight. We liked the house, but I couldn't stand how dark it was inside. Before we moved in, I call a Tubular Skylight company to get an estimate on installing them in the house. Recommendation was a large one in the kitchen ceiling ($500.00), small one in a bathroom off the hallway($250.00), a medium size in the family room off the kitchen ($325.). I can't tell you how bright this area is now. What I liked is they just go through your attic, make the openings and can position the tube (in the attic) toward south so we get bright light from sunrise to sunset. Over the past 6 yrs when we could afford more, we added to the laundry room (no windows), another bathroom (small skylight), the dining room. My house is so bright when you walk in you think there are spotlights all over the place. It took me a while, initially when the first ones were put in to get used to the high level of light. Looked like a new house! Before putting them in, we had to have our overhead lights lit all day. That costs a lot of money. I feel these tube skylights have paid for themselves in 5 yrs. Plus the house looks like a bright, inviting home. Everyone who walks in comments on how bright our home is. I would look into installing at least one large one in the kitchen, maybe a medium in the hall. So much less expensive than 'real skylights' and keeping the lights lit all day. Jane