Kitchen planning progress

We went back to the Albert Lee appliance store and looked at the ranges again. After talking with the sales associate and looking at the options once more, we decided that we like the Aga 6:4 dual fuel range and want to stick with Aga. It is expensive but we think it will work out well for us.

Now that we have a range selected we have to move onto figuring out our venting system. We need a vent that will work with our island configuration without overwelming the room. Fairly challenging. I was at a different appliance store in Roosevelt yesterday and learned that while 36 inches above the range was ideal, that we could mount it higher than that. Considering that we don't do a lot of deep fat frying it should be fine. We're operating with a stove top grill and a down draft and have gotten by just fine.

Vent finish options are finished metal, some with glass, and then the alternate option of buying the venting liner and finishing it with cabinetry or such. I've really got to go through my magazines and figure out what we like.

With our kitchen doing an exterior install of the stove doesn't really seem possible. I'm sure it is but based on the input of a couple cabinet consultants and architects it doesn't seem that easy.

We also stopped by a tile store, Ambiente, a couple weeks ago to get some ideas. My partner is still heavily leaning towards wanting a stone tile floor. We didn't really get that far in that regard. We found some interesting backsplash tile but it was an arm and a leg so we are still researching other options. For countertop surfaces we are thinking of going with butcher block on the island and then a darker surface for the outside counters. We looked at soapstone and also a black, black granite, I think it is called Meta. It had a matte type finish and looked pretty nice.

Here's the really expensive tile we saw at Ambiente:

Yesterday we went back to the cabinet store to discuss all of the detail and finish options so they could give us a tighter estimate. We like painted wood cabinets with a glaze; red for the island with a black type glaze and sunflower, a soft butter yellow, for the outer cabinets with a brown glaze. They told us that our kitchen was going to be really unique because evidently everyone in Seattle likes to order Shaker style cabinets in Cherry. What the?