Do you have any pics of your cabs and the stone? BR varies so widely that it's hard to know whether your combo would look nice or not. Plus, you might get tile and paint suggestions if we can see your materials together.

I personally like gray. A lot. :)

I love gray. In my new build gray is my background/neutral color. I am doing silvery-gray floors, Alaska White granite (which is very similar to Bianco Antico and similar to Bianco Romano), and espresso cabs with brushed nickel hardware. There are pics on houzz and here and I think that combo looks great. I don't think of Bianco Romano as gray - depends upon the slab though.

You might think about picking up some color other than the gray in the granite for the backsplash, esp if you do gray floors. I'm thinking about a taupe or maybe a greige, maybe more of a silver, or even a cream, obviously not sure about BS yet - will decide once granite and cabs are in. I'm also not sure about the paint color in the kitchen.

The one thing with grays - cool and warm don't look too great together IMO - to me cool gray turns warm gray a grayish green so watch for the undertones to make sure your grays work together. I think you will be fine with your cabs and granite. Just make sure you granite and floor work together.

Good luck. I think you should be excited!

The key is to use accessories to pull in color! I bet lavender and 2 fishies will have ideas! (and others)

I love gray! But I think I might have the same problem, gray planned for the floor, gray is on the walls, counters have a grayish, greenish, taupish look. I am going to have to see it when it comes together. Floor and counters are staying so I will change up the wall color if it just flow right!

You need to get--and post--samples of all your materials. Sounds tomblike to me.

Agree with A2 about using accent colors - thus the reason I have some red leather bar stools sitting in my cart on the O that I have yet to pull the trigger on. Not sure they will go with my granite and I'm months away from needing them. But they are calling my name. (Esp after seeing A2's cayenne banquette cushion!)

As marcolo suggested - post some pics of your materials. I'd love to see what you are doing!

I agree that you need samples to really see the elements together. That said, I love the mixture of gray and warm wood. I am not certain about gray paint as well, but I think gray slate flooring, espresso cabinets, and bianco romano counters sounds lovely.

hmm not sure how to post more than one pic at a time so will post some more soon. sorry i dont have great pics - DH dropped camera in tile store :-p anyways my slab i think is mostly blueish gray and gold. the 2nd slab (dont have pics of) is less gold and has some more burgundy garnets... my shaker cabinets are maple espresso bishop cabinets- style is danbury. will be getting ss hardware- something straight.

breezy and beeps- i also LOVE gray! picked out paint colors (besides kitchen) yesterday and had to keep reminding myself to make sure whole house doesnt end up gray.

a2gemini- i agree! i keep thinking wat is my "pop of color" going to be" (watching way too much hgtv ;-) but cant come up with rite color...wat do u think?

anyways the nightmare of my saga-the granite place refuses to give me a sample! they r scared to ruin my slab so i have to drive to the granite yard tom morning (leave my house at 6:30 am because it is hour and a half away!) with my 6 tile options to see what matches! all i can say is that one of those grays BETTER match! i will def post more pictures- thanks so much everyone for the input! keep it coming!!

heres another pic- the gold may come off a lil peachy in the pic but it is really more goldy

and here is a pic of cab sample- the one to the right is mine.

Very pretty slab! My yard wouldn't give me a sample of my slab either. :( Makes it tricky to figure everything out. They had samples of things you could buy, but no samples like my slabs. I have a sample of Bianco Antico that I'm using because it looks a lot like my slabs of Alaska White.

I see you are driving out there tomorrow with gray BS samples. Are you going with glass or tile? I'm thinking a silvery-colored glass BS might be really pretty. Or some of the Ore Glass tiles if money is no consideration given they run $45ish/sq ft. They are stunning!

Here is a link that might be useful: Ore Glass Tile

oh my goodness that is SO tricky! i mean i guess in a way i dont blame them but on the other hand- how are we supposed to match anything? hm anyways i wasnt clear- im bringing my FLOOR tiles with me tomorrow- still havent finalized on one... brought my cool and warm options :) from the pic- looks like its gona be the cool gray.

by the time i pick my backsplash i BETTER have a sample of my granite! lol im sure i will tho- will wait til granite is in i think. when do i have to paint tho cos i would think i need to pick my bs and paint together... rite?

anyways silvery glass sounds really pretty! those ore glass tiles look beautifulll but 45 bucks? whewwwwww! but i will def look out for silvery. some1 on gw did a really pretty pearly bs with bianco romano- wat do u think?

btw beeps please post pics of any samples u have! would love to see ur cabs, granite and floor!

My bad on assuming you were taking BS samples. Def going to be a cool gray floor I'd say. I'm going with Prince and Duchess in silver on the floor. Def cool. Can't post link right now - on android. I think you would want to see your floor tile with the whole slabs anyway so probably good to make the trip. And yep, if you can wait on BS til everything installed so much the better. Hope you love one of the tiles. Pics expected. :)

My bad on assuming you were taking BS samples. Def going to be a cool gray floor I'd say. I'm going with Prince and Duchess in silver on the floor. Def cool. Can't post link right now - on android. I think you would want to see your floor tile with the whole slabs anyway so probably good to make the trip. And yep, if you can wait on BS til everything installed so much the better. Hope you love one of the tiles. Pics expected. :)

As someone whose whole house is painted Gray Owl (Only allowed to pick one color for the new house), I don't think too much of a good gray is a bad thing. Well, the only bad thing is EVERYTHING goes with it! I love my orange accents in the kitchen (it has a gray island, with gray & white counters), and yet, the lime green still looks good, so does the turquoise and orange I'm planning for the living room, dark purple in the dining room, and of course my pale pink accents in the bathroom.....I could go on and on. But, you can easily make each room look different even if you end up painting it all a gray!

But, how to bring color into your kitchen? Those slabs read blue and gold to me, not gray. Of course it could be my monitor. Have you considered a pale blue backsplash? You need to really like blue in order to make that commitment. But I think a blueish gray tile would be really pretty.

If you are not able to commit to a color for the backsplash (which is hard for me to do)...

... then there are the colorful accessories, the dishtowels, a couple of trays on the counter that hold some oils that coincidentally have a label in your accent color, and maybe a vase with some spatulas that are in your color. It's not too much money to get some color in there, and it is easily changeable!

Here's my gray kitchen with the orange accessories (ignore the pink flowers, or pretend they are orange. This is from when we first got in) I don't have a bs yet. I'll be doing (probably) the white arabesques that I used in the last house.

I don't see any gray in that granite either. There's a blue on the purple end, a gold, and a background warm cream with pinkish undertones.

The slab actually reminds me of some Ice White I looked at that I almost cried at not getting when I decided on the Alaska White. Except the Ice White didn't have any of the gold in it. Thus I have that in my mind also when I look at the pics. So, I see the color as gray, but a very cool gray with lots of blue undertones. Hoping you select a beautiful cool gray floor to go with it today!

As long as you have 50 shades of grey, you'll be fine.

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist).

i know, the gray looks really blue in these pictures- its definitely a very blue gray, but it is gray. beekeeper- i do love light blue a lot but i dont think it would match since it really is more gray than the picture. so beekeeper wat accent color do you suggest? the granite is a light creamy gold with a lot of blueish purplish gray running through it- it does have those burgundy specs that bianco romano has but its a lil more purpley than the ones ive seen online and not very many.. ur orange looks GREAT with all the gray and i always loved ur white arabesques.

ok now for the good news :) went to see my slabs today and they look gorgeous :) second slab (pic is not posted) is even prettier than the first- gray is much more evenly distributed- no blob of just gold. had two blue gray tiles- one was a lil too busy- had some stripes- and one was perfect! a light silvery bluey gray with some shading-beeps ur prince and duchess tile is actually really similar to it but mines a lil less purple and lighter (dont know wat ur tile actualy looks like but found this link- so thats wat im comparing to.)

anyways i am not nervous abt being too gray because although slabs have a lot of gray, the background color is the gold which really 'warms it up?' so will def be going with gray walls. the q is the backsplash so we all think silvery/bluey gray backsplash is pretty rite? definitely it should be one color right? no mosaics or anything... also, r we ruling out the pearl?

btw also brought along two beige tiles with me which matched very well but too well- very matchy matchy and just a lil boring/blah looking.

any1 know of any good paint colors btw? beekeeper urs looks really nice- is it blueish?

also we are doing 12 x 24 tiles not 24 x 24 and we are doing them 'offset' that wat its called?

I'm so excited that you love your slabs *and* that you have a flooring that is perfect! So glad sis didn't derail you! (My sis has totally different taste than I do but she is pretty good about picking out/seeing what I like and giving me an opinion about it from that perspective even though she might not like it and it wouldn't be right for her.)

My P&D looks kind of pink online and it doesn't in person. Very cool though and probably does have a hint of lavendar which comes through. Good eye! Here are a few pics of some of what I'm doing. Same tile throughout house and all expresso cabs.

Granite with P&D:

Bathrooms - except I'm going with carrara marble rather than the cambria whitney (speckled piece showing), and with linear glass tile rather than the small squares and mosaic but in those colors - with the P&D flooring on the bottom of all of them.

My foundation isn't even poured yet so nothing better to show you, sorry.

I wouldn't do mosaic because I'm in the "it would be too busy" camp. I'd do a single color. Probably glass. The iridescent/pearl are so pretty but I tend to pull a lot of pink off of those and not sure that's what you want. How big an area do you have for a BS? That makes a difference too I think.

I'm sure the paint color experts can give you a color that would be awesome. And I'll be watching that closely because I'll be needing a cool light gray color myself.

Good luck. Glad you are feeling so positive and happy about things. =)

Regarding your backsplash...slow down. Do you love that granite? It's a 100% go, right? Then continue on with your plan, do the floor, cabinets and granite. Then, you can decide on the backsplash. There a couple of reasons you need to slow down, if you can. The stone will look different in a horizontal position, and when it is not in its full slab form. Essentially, you have to visualize it in 1/3rds, unless it's the island. The stone will look different in your house than it does at the stone yard. The backsplash goes in last, so you might as well take advantage of that and wait to see all the other team players first before making your choice. And yes, I think you want a solid color for your backsplash--or else it will be too busy with the granite. There will be a lot of choices.

When I look at your slab, since the gray is leaning towards grayish blue, I would think about blue as your accent color. Again, don't make any choices until you see it in play in your house. But some sort of cobalt blue maybe? Or maybe a dark royal purple? And then when you get to paint for the walls, you just need to find a color that blends with the floor and the counter. Cross that bridge later too.

ARe you asking about my island color? It photographs more blue than it really is. It does lean towards the blue, no doubt. The color is called London Fog, it is from the ML Campbell fan deck--the catalyzed lacquer that was used to paint it.

beeps and hags:
you have piqued my interested in your floors!! I love the thought of gray flooring.

What are you using? how are you doing it?
sorry 2B a lameo, what is P & D???

PICS PLEASE

ya i am SO happy abt tile- really matches beautifully-our tiles are almost identical btw (besides for the "urs r more purple mine r more blue" thing- so funny! wat r ur measurements for tile? they look like such a cool shape- love it!

so anyways ya i have my confidence back :) lol lucky u ur sis is still helpful. mine r like okaaaay wtvr u want.. u can get dark walnut just hope u dont regret it.... (they are very obsessed with the house being light and r scared i am making mine too dark with my dark walnut floors and espresso cabs...oh well)

i loooove ur bathroom choices- exactly wat i have pictured for my bathroom when i redo it- eventually ;-)

btw ur kitchen is also so similar to what i had originally envisioned for my kitchen because i was initially set on bianco antico but granite yard didnt have any so he showed me bianco romano.... and the rest is history...lol

beekeeper-i was actually talking abt ur gray owl- it looks a little blueish and like it may be a good match- wat do u think? anyways thanks for ur advice- i would love to slow down and not pick backsplash til later but my concern was abt the painting... i thought i had to paint before cabinets but if i dont i will decide on backsplash and paint together- once cabs and granite r in. (hopefully in two weeks) so do ppl normally paint b4 or after cabs and granite? dont i have to make sure the backsplash and paint match or no?

dark royal purple sounds gorgeous to me- will definitely try it out! thanks!!

Even if you paint first, and lots of people end up doing that, please wait on the backsplash.

When i saw my White Macaubus at the stone yard, I was certain I'd end up with a soft calacatta marble backsplash of some sort. The WM was only going on the island. With leathered absolute black on the perimeter, I thought the soft backsplash and the WM would work really well...until I saw the countertops installed and had about fifteen backsplash samples propped up. The marbles just didnt work.

So my point is that Bee is correct. Do not rush this. Until you see the other elements in your home and can put samples where they'll actually be, just hold off. There's no need to put the cart before the horse. You may find other options will blow you away. Many of us here had something in mind initially only to have to kind of restart once we saw it in place and found it to be "blah."

There's a new invention called vowels. Anybody tried them yet?

i totally hear u babs but wat do i do about the painting? match it to the floor and granite and hope for the best? i guess if paint matches floors and tiles and backsplash matches floors and tiles paint and backsplash will match... lol if that made any sense.

Pretty funny about the purple - believe it or not I was just looking for purple glass tiles this afternoon. Not too much luck because I'm looking for large format tiles. I'm going to do a purple/plum (I'm not good with my purple color words!) accent chair in my living room and keep toying with the idea of seeing if something in the lavender/gray world would work with my granite. There is some deep taupe/aubergine color or something in my granite. But, my granite should be in a different state by now so I can't visit it for a while to really see it in person again. *sniff* And, I'm going to wait on the BS until after the house is finished. Want to see everything in place first.

Sorry about the quick hijack here veevs... Sorry for the shorthand go figure - P&D is Prince & Duchess, a Bedrosians tile that I'm going to be using in the color Silver in my house. It is shown above with my granite and then with my bathroom choices. I'll actually be using 24x24 but I got the smaller 6x24 tiles to cart around. Go for it with a gray floor! It will be beautiful. :) There were several very pretty ones at Bedrosians, but the online pics on their website are awful.

So, where is a pic of your floor tile veevs? Patiently waiting. :)

I know less than nothing about design. That said, my designer is wonderful! And she says that for at least the next few years, grey goes with ANY wood tone. Espresso is a wood tone. ssee

In seeing everything she sent me, and now surfing on my own at houzz, etc., I think that she is right.

There's advice I paid for, free to you. But do as your heart guides, NOT as your SIL says. ;)

that is so funny! we r going to have matching houses! lol. except i think im doing blue accent colors in my living room so matching kitchens lol. anyways i think lavender backsplash would look really pretty and so cool and original but still soft and pretty. the floor tile looked really nice next to ur slab and def will bring out the lavenderish color in ur granite. r u doing diamond floor btw? or reg squares? cant believe ur so ahead in picking everything out when ur house is barely started! good for u! i feel like im tot rushing around.

took pics of my tile but never got around to uploading it! lol will def do it later today

right on dowbright! :) really thanks for the support! (and free advice ;-) im really getting excited about everything.

Veevs, I would love to see your floor tile too. I'm also looking for a light grey tile. Please post a photo, pretty please??

veevs - I wish I wasn't so far ahead. I have to have everything picked before they will pour the foundation and start the house. Bathroom and kitchen sinks, faucets, lights, flooring, coutertops, door hardware, paint, kitchen and bath cabs/drawers color and style, everything! Geez! Enough to drive me crazy. I'll do the kitchen BS after I close and move in. Love the lavender idea. Have always done brown and blue in living room before. I'm going out of my comfort zone. :)

Still waiting (patiently) on the pic of that tile... :)

ALRIGHT guys i have the long awaited pics of my tile :)

beeps ull appreciate it later when you get to relax! i think its great! i feel like im rushing around like a lunatic lol (especially since im living in new jersey now and buying house in new york... makes things complicated...) what color you using for ur wood floors? this weeks job is finding light fixtures for kitchen... i would love to see what you have picked out...

heres another one

and another one... my lighting's not great..

beeps, if taupe is purple-y, it's no longer taupe. If you're looking for a grayed purple, be very careful. LOTS of them have way too much blue in them and end up looking Crayola-y. I'm looking at a BM color 'Kasbah' for my den walls, and 'Weimerimer' (I don't know how to spell that) for the ceiling. That is an almost taupe that picks up the purple and gray in the 'Kasbah'. I've been searching for YEARS for the right purple. It absolutely, truly, really depends upon your lighting.

Vowels would be nice; we're not texting here.

I didn't see gray in that granite, but rather a heck of a lot of blue. I like the tiles you've posted above and think you're going to have a lovely kitchen! Love the darkness of your cabinets. How in the heck, with those rich tones, could you ever have too much gray! Keep in mind that gray is very sophisticated and cool. The wood warms it all up and that granite will add sparkle!

Pretty veevs. Looks like things are all coming together for you. Unfortunately I have to come up with another floor tile. :( And I built my house around that one. As it turns out it fails miserably with regard to being slippery. So, I'm off to tile stores today to try and find another one that will work with all my selections and not be like an ice skating rink.

Thanks for the heads-up Christine. I used a beautiful grayed purple 10 or so years ago. Good luck with yours. Hope to see pics soon!

hi everyone! im back! moved in bout 3 months ago and really happy with how kitchen is turning out... still definitely a work in progress tho... (still need to bring that pop of color, bee :) got my purple dish towel and vase and some mugs i think ill hang above sink? wat do you think?)

anyways of course ive been totally obsessing about which backsplash to get but after 3 months i think i finally got it! would love to know what you all think so heres a link to some pics:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/88607576@N08/8225043701/in/photostream

i did not order anything yet so BE HONEST!! :)

Here is a link that might be useful: backsplash/kitchen pics

Forgot to mention that i started a new thread so ppl dont have to scroll down thru other posts so here is link to other thread

also would love suggestions on the rest of the kitchen...
of course im in desperate need of a few things like:
1) espresso table- this one looks pretty bad
2) window treatments! ahh
3) really want a purple teakettle but havent found any that are actually functional- just the adorable reston lloyd one that melts :( so if any1 can suggest another (not necessarily purple... just pretty)
4) must get that knife set off my counter.. where should i put it? basement? :)

....and im sure pleny of other things that you guys can point out... so pleaaase-any input would be fantastic. thank u!!

Here is a link that might be useful: other thread