What is it made of? Is it resin or other type of plastic? If it's a plastic, and you use that paint for plastic, I think the ultraviolet in sunlight will make the color fade, or make it eventually peel. Or both. Generally speaking, leaving a container outside where it is likely to fill with water is usually begging for trouble. Water expands when it freezes, and it is very, VERY strong. I would be inclined to continue as you've been doing and put it away or turn it upside down for winter. A long time ago I read this: "You can argue with the laws of physics all you want, but you're gonna lose". Sue

Its really looks nice go ahead friend.

Thank you everyone for the helpful responses! First of all, Liriodendron: thank you for letting me know this scary news. I checked my hotmail acct. and couldn't find an email from you but I just wrote you from an account I use much more frequently. Our thoughts and prayers are with your husband and you. Please write back as soon as you can. Nothing new on our end, thank you. I hope everything's okay. Francoise - that's a great link, thank you! I love this site - I just knew I'd great better responses than I probably would doing any extensive google search - haha. Skydog - thanks for the clay bar info as well! The product they used was this strong-smelling red putty which most paint stores sell. They claim it's a better fillers than other re. possible lead paint underneath and having to sand over (or maybe it's particularly re. wet-sanding by hand that it's better for, i'm not sure). At any rate, I can easily get that, and I do have extra spare marble I can test it on. Great idea! Clulessincolorado - oh, you're sweet. :) I do like the old fashioned push button look although I sometimes question whether a polished nickel might not have looked nicer than the ultra bright white. Black might look nice too. At first I thought an aged brass would clash too much with no other brass around in the room, but then I thought maybe the bronze look would do. Glad you liked the white though. It'll do for now - I've obviously got bigger fish to fry in that damned kitchen. Ha - fish to fry in the kitchen. That's not quite a pun, but almost! Lazygardens - well I seem to have the most WONDERFUL luck with contractors...at this point I just assume do the research myself and try to fix it myself cause I no longer trust the guys that caused the damage. As it was, they were back to fix mistakes that were pretty ridiculous. It's amazing, my luck w/ contractors! I wasn't messing around this time so found them from the state lead control website! I was sure anyone they said were certified would be good and they of course seemed good but alas... it wasn't meant to be. Anyway long story short, I don't want them touching the marble again. Fori - I agree and have my fingers crossed. The stain could, I suppose, be worse. Some marble's pink, right? ;) It's so annoying though, that this has happened. I'll be happier even if it only comes out a little more. Autumn-butterfly - thank you! :) I'll let you guys know what i end up figuring out/doing. For now I'm in high gear painting mode as I'm throwing a big baby shower on Saturday and am only painting the kitchen (with a friend's help) TONIGHT! Walls and ceiling tonight, cabinets and all trim tomorrow. VERY little time to dry! FYI (unrelated to the stain issue) - the cabinets and trim will be BM's Fieldstone gray - same color as the lowers for those of you who might remember (not keeping the uppers white - although I'll re-paint them white if I hate them in the gray-green color) and then the walls were a last-minute decision before the store closed (!) so are a hopefully safe BM Linen White. Wish me luck on this, too, please!

Look at your inspiration photo (the last one) again. It is not wall to wall windows. There is breathing room and wall space around the windows. While a wall of glass might be different, I don't like a wall of windows, especially without breathing room. Go back to three windows or even one larger and two narrower ones. I like the C-shaped idea, but I would make the cabinets stained like your main ones. Your hood is more like that one above, the barrel shape, right? You are using the chimney style in the drawings and that just doesn't look right with panels around it. I don't think a hood looks sad and lonely if not connected to cabinets -- I think it looks clean and functional, but I wonder where my oils and things, my serving pieces, etc. will go. LOL (You could look into putting in some niche space in your backsplash or to the side.) If you do uppers, I do like the idea of stained better, and I do think the same height is better. Or just put one on the window wall to the counter to balance the one at the other end and forget the other one. (be brave -- the copper is beautiful and can shine on it's own). Make the island less of a cabinet that turns the corner and treat it more like a piece of furniture added to the rest of the kitchen. Give it a different color, different counter, different trim, hardware and even a different (but related - not too different) door style. Maybe put it on feet. My thoughts, anyway. ;-)