Thank you to everyone on this board. I learned a lot reading the posts/comments and felt very comfortable going into our kitchen refresh. We bought our home as a new build 6.5 years ago, but essentially had no choice in choosing any of our non-flooring finishes. Everything was in pretty good shape, but we strongly disliked our granite countertops, backsplash, and stainless steel sink. It just didn’t go well with our design style in the rest of the house. And, most of all, our kitchen was really dark - we do not get very much natural light and the cabinets are so dark.

We installed AureaStone quartz in Lincoln for our countertops. We love it because it doesn’t look as fake as some of the other quartz products out there and seems to have a whiter base color than most. The backsplash is from OceasideTile (and the pictures below do not do it justice - it is beautiful in person). We wanted a simple countertop so that our backsplash would be the focus. We had intended to paint our cabinets to brighten up the space, but I think changing the countertops and backsplash was enough and we like the dark cabinets with the light countertops.

One of my favorite new additions is the Silgranit sink in metallic grey...LOVE...finally a sink that always looks clean. Faucet is by Brizo (Litze model) in polished nickel with the smart touch feature (was a little afraid of this finish but it is beautiful). Also love the new countertop button for our disposal as we previously had to reach under the sink in a cabinet to turn on.

I loved looking at other posts with pictures of kitchen updates as it helped a lot in deciding what we wanted, so I am returning the favor. The first two pics are the before.