Any advice if I try to figure out some of this myself? I found this website http://www.ikeasaudi.com/ikea.com.sa/images/stories/new2010/Web%20BG%202011/Kitchen/FAKTUM/FAKTUM_bg_GB.pdf Its overwelming for me. Did you use the online ikea design tool. I love your color scheme. How did you decide on that granite? I found this website too . Perhaps those cabinets are not available here but just where you are. either way I can find something similiar. Did you have any issues with ordering..getting parts.. assemely? Do you have any helpful tips for designing ? Did you actually hang them yourself? Is there anything about the cabinets that you find defective or insufficient or think could be better? Thank you so much for all your help.

A chippy can create any kind of decorative effect you desire (its just fibre board and mouldings) and you can vent the mechanical hood under it. I have a godawful stainless steel modern hood in my vintage cottage. I'm sure the last residents loved it, but they failed to actually have the hood vented properly. It just vents into the roofspace. So I now have the opportunity to remove the largely useless anyway hood and start over. I'm planning the same as you. A faux hearth, boxed in with fibre cement board and then with decorative mouldings attached. The actual mechanical part will be properly vented outside.

I should add, you'd have to check if those companies will take receipt of parcels from outside the USA, or not. I've only used them to get shipments originating from within the USA.

If there isn't a duct leading somewhere it's not ducted. Venting into the cavity doesn't sound right? Perhaps it was permissible when originally built? Our first house had a simple exhaust fan, of the type also used in bathrooms, above the stove and it went straight into the ceiling. That wasn't unusual in cheaper homes in those days. But these days kitchen exhausts should be recirculating or ducted externally to avoid build-up of potentially dangerous residues. In your situation recirculating sounds the most straightforward option. Alternatively you might be able to run the ducting out a side wall but the longer the ducting the less efficiently it works. Is it possible your rangehood has been installed incorrectly? We installed a rangehood in the 90's which could be configured as recirculating or as ducted and It took a few attempts to get the thing working properly.