Plenty of folks with dark shiny tops here say "Never again."

I've had black quartz kitchen countertops for 15 years and love them. An island would be easy to keep clean with spray cleaner and a dishcloth. However, I have shiny black granite in my powder room that shows every single water spot, so my next house will have light quartz in the bathrooms.

Have you ever owned a black car? A black glass stovetop? How badly does visible dust bother you? 5 minutes after you cleaned?

At least you'll know if It's clean and in a kitchen that might be a good thing.

I've' had black-ishcounters in the kitchen for 20 years. Granted - they are not 100% black but they are not that bad with dust

Are you talking the painted wood on an island? I have a dark grey island (BM Advance-Kendall Charcoal- semigloss) and while that's a lot tamer than black it's still pretty dark. I haven't found it to highlight dust, but we don't have any pets because of oldest dds extreme allergies, so no pet hair to contend with.
I also have dark countertops on the perimeter of my kitchen, but the finish is leathered (steel grey granite, leathered) and it also doesn't highlight dust or fingerprints.
Hope that helps!

I have 2 white dogs and I don't find that the dust and dog hair are a mentionable problem on my black cabinets. Yes, it shows more than a medium wood tone would but I found that my previous white cabinets were harder to keep clean.

If you are asking about black countertops, we have black granite and even with a dog and two cats, I don't find they are any harder to keep clean, but they are prone to marks made by fingerprints and water rings - something to consider if you will have a sink in the island.

I have had black granite counters in my kitchen for 25 years and beautiful but walk around with the windex bottle. My new home I'm building will have either a white quartzite or soapstone as I do love black but not the gloss anymore

I had a very dark Ubatuba granite for 15 years in my last kitchen. Looked beautiful! I didn't think it was too bad to maintain but I am a clean freak. lol

If you mean dark cabinets, yes, we love the look. We are doing white, pewter glazed cabinets around the perimeter and dark gray cabinetry for the island.

"Have you ever owned a black car? A black glass stovetop? How badly does visible dust bother you? 5 minutes after you cleaned?"

Listen to Sophie here. I recently got a new smoothtop (glass) range, and the top is black. I have never spent so much damn time wiping off a rangetop, and I am certainly not OCD -far from it. I would think very carefully before going with dark glossy counters.

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Ok...I think I've decided to go with a gray island instead of the black. Thank you everyone for your input.

Plenty of folks with dark shiny tops here say "Never again."

I love the black counter tops with blue flecks -- love, love, love them -- but we rented a condo at the beach once that had black counter tops, and it was enough to make me say, "Nope, not for me." I mean, you can have the whole kitchen clean, and then someone comes in to make a sandwich -- and those crumbs jump right at you.

Similarly, I have two pieces of black-gray furniture in my house, and I regret them. Two days after I've dusted, they look dirty. No thanks. I'll stick with mid-tones, please.

"I mean, you can have the whole kitchen clean, and then someone comes in to make a sandwich -- and those crumbs jump right at you."

Counters should be cleaned after preparing a sandwich.

Amen Nirvanaav! I've been known to come up behind one of my teenaged children, grab their hand, and use it to wipe off the counter whilst declaring "THIS is why I insisted on undermount sinks! Because there's no excuse for not wiping up your crumbs!"

I would go with a not polished surface and call it good. Black looks so good honed anyways. I do have a black glass top stove and it doesn't get dusty. It is harder to get it looking super clean, though. I use it once a day to prepare dinner. If I don't use it for a few days, it gets a little dusty.

I don't clean after every little thing I do in the kitchen (like making a sandwich). I clean when things are unsanitary (think meat juices) or obviously messy. With white speckled counters, I can get away with that and no one thinks my kitchen is dirty. With a black counter, you can't get away with that as easily. It depends how you clean and use the kitchen.

I see that you have decided on gray. I feel like gray can have similar issues to black (depending on how dark you want to go and how little variation there is in the counter), but it doesn't pack quite the same punch of drama as the black so it feels like a lose-lose situation to me. Gray is not a statement as a counter.

If you are talking about dark cabinets, not counter, 100% go for it. Looks great and I don't think it shows dirt worse than white.

I have a black cabinets in my kitchen and have no problem keeping them clean with the very occasional dusting and my house gets very very dusty.

The white cabinets from my last home were definitely more maintenance.

Black countertops are a whole different issue, had black quartz in a bathroom before and never again.

Black, Black, Black yes I simply love black. Years ago, my DW nearly killed me when she walked into the home I built back in NJ while she was still in the UK; I used black marble for the kitchen floor. The floor looked simply amazing but was a nightmare if wine or something similar spilled and we missed it. I tried to talk my DW into a black quarz island in the new build, but no deal.

To Sophie's point, my 'own' cars are black and look amazingly clean just as if they came right out of motor show but I'm a clean freak; it's hard now while we build our next home, our cars are parked on the street where we live since both garages are full of boxes, despite my black sedan looks stunningly clean.

^^See. You have to be a self admitted dedicated clean freak with duster in hand to make it work.

Or just don’t give a darn at all about visible dust showing up.

People in the middle are just uncomfortable.

Curious .... is black more of a regional thing? When visiting relatives in the northeast I noticed many more black cars (white cars are very trendy where I live ) and black countertops and even sinks, toilets ( ugh ), etc. I live in So California. Just wondering , has anyone else noticed this ?

It really depends on you. Black islands are beautiful and luxurious and so convenient for creating contrasts and giving a focus to your kitchen space. Black will, naturally, show dust, but that's nothing to be worried about. Cleaning your black island like any other island color should be enough. What countertop are you going to place on it?

Curious .... is black more of a regional thing?

There's probably a lot to this idea.

Matching the color of your local dirt -- if you have a lot of it -- is especially helpful on the exterior. Unless you enjoy scrubbing the outside of your house or don't care if the bottom 2' looks filthy. :-)

For interior finishes, I really think it depends on what bothers you most, and how you want to deal with local conditions. How hard your water is, or what color your pests are, are two I can think of offhand. Hard water = more water spots and obvious mineral build up on black. If you live in an area with, say, scorpions, don't do midtones/beige because then you can't see 'em. And with those suckers, you really want to see them before they see you.

My husband likes to "hide" messes, because he's more visually stressed when he can see things all wonky. Generally, I like to be able to *see* messes, because I'm more annoyed by unknowingly touching something/stepping in something icky -- not only do I then have to clean whatever it was that was dirty, but I also then have to clean myself, a sticky toddler, and/or a psychotic dog, and any other bigger mess they tracked around before I discovered it, lol.

Black vs white or silver cars is a solar gain issue. Black cars are hot. When it’s 110 outside, a black car will be an oven.

I'm quite taken aback with the reluctance of people to CLEAN their kitchen work surface. We're not talking about an end table in the rarely-used living room. This is the kitchen where food is prepared and consumed. It's not a hardship to wipe-down those surfaces daily, even multiple times per day.

In your favorite restaurant, would you want the food preparation and eating surfaces cleaned when they look dirty enough or all the time?

Not everyone prepares or eats food in their kitchen every day.