grey and white, carrara and granite

I love white kitchen cabinets, but as I've mentioned before, it wouldn't be practical for homes with young kids as they would get their grubby hands on them. I also love grey kitchens.

So, to have the best of both worlds, I've decided (thus far) that I'm going for grey lower cabinets and white upper cabinets. With white for the upper cabinets, it would be less maintenance for me as upper cabinets are usually less handled and the kids won't be able to reach up to them. :-)

And white Carrara marble countertops as I've always loved the look of white marble.

After going through my contractor's quotation today, I was trying to cut out as much unnecessary stuff as I could to keep within our budget. Of course, I knew marble would be rather expensive, but I didn't want to compromise it with anything else!

Until I read this post by the super-talented Joni of Cote de Texas blog the other day and saw this photo.

I always love how her photos are so big on her blog

Grey lower cabinets and white upper cabinets! But.... black honed granite countertops! And Carrara marble for the island! And it looks gorgeous!

So, I asked my contractor (within half an hour of reading the post) of how much black granite would cost. She said pure black granite would be rather expensive and would get back to me on that. Sigh.

Then, I saw this photo on Greige.

The granite countertops here are not black, rather grey-speckled and it looks gorgeous, too!

I think I need to stop looking at photos of beautiful kitchens otherwise I'll never make up my mind!

So, what's your preference?

Carrara marble?

Or granite?

Double sigh!