Your beautiful chairs are in danger of getting banged up. You could try to "cushion" the edge of the countertop. I'm looking for something to prevent my wood desk chair from getting banged up on the top edge of my desk. There are "edge protector" products for tables, but the ones I've seen look like crap. Something made for cars (side molding) may work. I'm looking for clear molding, and haven't found anything in clear, yet. Here is a link that might be useful: Body Side Molding This post was edited by GypsyWaterfowl on Fri, Aug 30, 13 at 4:13

No pictures Riles but we did one for a mucky muck Wallet on a retro deal. Installed glav 2'' steel posts thru the frame fastened the tiled 6' x3' shop built bar top to them. Worked great,major money maker, the Wallet was and two years later still is a Happy Girl. J.

Our raised bar on the peninsula will be 18" wide. About 5" of it will rest on the supporting wall; about 1" will overhang on the counter side; and about 12" will overhang on the other side where bar stools will be placed. It will be granite and therefore pretty heavy - its 7' long. We didn't want corbels to interfere with seating, so our granite fabricator is routing the underside of the granite and installing 1/4" steel plates under the bar (every 18" or so) as supports. The routing allows the steel plates to be flush with the underside of the bar. They will be visible only if one bends over and looks up underneath the bar. They charged nothing extra for doing this.

terrilynn, I am confused about what to do for the island and also the desk/coffee bar/bar area. I'm going back and forth on wood or soapstone for the island. I'm pretty sure I want wood on the desk and soapstone on the bar/coffee area. (just for maintenance purposes). I'm not sure if I do the base colors on the other areas the same as the island or different. We aren't doing any stainless except for the range, but that desk is pretty cool! Lavender, thanks, and I love the idea of red accents. I hadn't really thought that far, but that will be perfect and will blend with the rest of our house. I guess I need to figure out if I can really do the painted island and how much maintenance that will be. Here are my options, in case anyone else is as confused as I am: 1. Wood colored island with soapstone top 2. Sage/light green island with soapstone top 3. Sage/light green island with wood top Desk: something with a wood top....I'm thinking base should match the island, unless of course the island base is wood tone, and then it would either match the yellow cabinets or the coffee bar area. Coffee bar/bar: definitely soapstone top- either yellow cabinets like the rest of the kitchen, green, or wood colored. I'm even confusing myself, so if anyone is following this, I'm impressed, and thank you for any thoughts!