Flooring & kitchen counters

The wood here is Hickory, and the granite looking material is a terrazzo like material called Eco Terra. It's made from recycled stone chips from other projects and bound together with a cement like material. The small darker gray material is a similar product, and the black on the right is called Paper Stone. It's actually made out of compressed, recycled paper bonded together with something Eco-friendly. It's really cool and supposedly bullet proof. This is the kind of color palette we are thinking of for the kitchen. All these products are from a local store that only sells environmentally friendly materials. We may not use the Hickory for sure, but we are leaning toward lighter colors like hickory, maple and beech. Maple is nice, but is expensive. We'll see.

I'm calling the contractor tomorrow, and we are committing to the sheet rock ceilings. It just makes the most sense, structurally and economically. Now, lets hope he hasn't come up with some reasons why we shouldn't do them...