Looking above her, there are a gazillion spiders living in the corner over the front door. Of course when I took this photo, there were only three, but normally there are six or seven. They are a kind I am not familiar with, having rather small, oval, black and orange bodies and long black legs—and no, they are definitely not black widows.

I suppose I am going to have to get used to a new bunch of fauna here. My assistant found a small scorpion the other day and saved it in a plastic bag to show me.

We bought some tile for the kitchen back splash last Saturday and I brought a couple of tiles up to look at it with the granite, which is now in the fabricator’s yard.

The two squares on the bottom are the tile, 6 X 6 gold honed limestone. The tile color is very similar to the wall color but we think the mottling in the stone will add enough interest to differentiate it from the paint.

The larger square is the final cabinet stain sample. The color doesn’t show very well in this photo because it is a very subtle version of the window jam stain color on oak. I think the banks of cabinets will register as green but a very soft, faint green. The sample really looked terrific with the granite, which will be the big star in the room—a completely different effect than the original plan.

The turquoise square on the left is the dining room hutch color. This finish is the same color as the painted trim of the main rooms. We have planned to use this sheet of Costa Smerlda granite—which is a celadon green—as the counter top, but I am not too sure whether this combo is going to work or not. The stone takes on a grayish cast in contrast to the brighter turquoise of the cabinets and I want to come back when the light is not so bright and look at them together again.

We want the hutch to blend in with the walls because our dining room table is very dark brown wood and will be the focus of attention. The wood being used to build the hutch is maple and would be way too light in comparison, so we decided to finish it in the trim color instead.

If we decide against this stone, we can always go to a crema marfil the fabricators have in their yard, which is a lovely, warm cream color instead.