My dear departed mother was never much of a drinker but every Christmas morning the two of us would have some form of champagne cocktail. Often a Mimosa, which went down a treat. BUT the year we tried a champagne and strawberry liqueur mix was a disaster. Well not for mum and I, we giggled through until mid afternoon when crashed for a nap. When we woke we realised the peas went unserved, some people had the wrong presents and there was something very charred in the oven. The family still talks about the year we were too tipsy to cook lunch. This year it'll be straight champagne (and after 8 years I still miss her dreadfully).

Both have their place depending on taste and budget.

A lot of the time they build a core filled concrete block wall then construct another stone wall against it. The concrete block wall takes the job of retaining while the stone is for looks only. It does depend on what purpose the wall is performing. For example a retaining wall higher than 600mm (usually) needs engineering by a structural engineer which is easier to achieve with core filled concrete block on footings rather than just solid stone. You never mentioned the purpose of the wall which is a vital detail as there can be numerous ways to achieve similar outcomes.

Hi FHB, the Diamond white you have is a large-chip pattern reconstituted stone. If it is of any help in seeing images of this type, then Caesarstone have a similar looking stone style in their range called Nougat 6600 and on their web page for this they have lots of kitchen images which have used this Nougat 6600 material. Their site link is here. Quantum Quartz also have a Galaxy Black similar to your Diamond Black and on their website they don't have many kitchen images but they do have a kitchen visualizer page that will allow you to load up the Galaxy Black into a preset kitchen image. Hope this helps, Malcolm, Compass KItchens