Hi Kim, the post was called 'ideas for a small kitchen' it's still on diseign dilemmas page three. Poster is hechlan. Yes, a white kicker will get as dirty as a stainless steel one. Although maybe hidden a little better. M reason for mentioning this, as stainless kickers are an early 90's thing, and will prematurely date the kitchen. I have designed kitchens for around 10 years now, and while they have a place, as in you want to tie into your stainless appliances then go for it. I would just consider your options first. The positive is that they will coordinate with an kitchen, however with a white kitchen, they may take some attention that the kitchen itself deserves. Try to create something in your kitchen unique to your layout, and that is long lasting enough to enhance your own aesthetic. Kitchens with personality usually have quirks from the owner, and this may well be one of them for you. My only reasoning is that I wouldn't want you to just do it as the cabinetmaker has been doing this for several years now. White get dirty, so does stainless, they both get mopped, and the stainless actually has a scribes surface which I know is harder to get the dirt out of. We used this in showrooms, and know from experience that flat standard laminate is far easier to clean that stainless kicker, regardless of the colour. Ask your joiner for a piece of laminate and stainless kicker, feel them for yourself. They often use HPL, high pressure laminate to make kickers, and not often LPM, low pressure melamine, as the HPL is far more durable. The joiner can explain th difference, or atleast know that you have looked into it.

@mazpt, yes of course. Here are a few more pictures showing how kitchen, living and dining, and outdoor deck and bbq area flow together. Oska kitchen is really neat in detailing; wood grain on the doors for example, are matched across as many doors as long as a 2.4m sheet allow. Floor turned out very nice too. Light natural colour, wide and long boards, laid length way all the way from front door to the back makes the space looks a bit bigger. Although it is still a floating floor, there are minimal floor movement that make squeak sound, most of the floor are feels solid. I hope that floor squeaking noise will settle over time.

Way late to the party here, but another reason NOT fill dents/holes/gouges in your floorboads with putty, is to avoid my current nightmare. My 100+ year old baltic pine floorboards badly need re-sanding as there are lots of large grey patches where the finish has worn completely away which looks terrible and it‘s really hard to keep even half clean. Being a tad short of cash atm Im looking at doing it myself, so the other day I got down on my hands and knees and had a really good look at the patches that were worn, and it turns out that underneath 90% of them isn’t wood at all - its $#*&ing putty, and theres so much of it, in high traffic areas some boards are almost more putty than wood! its basically dirt magnet that’s really ugly yet really hard to remove, making the job of refinishing sooo much harder than it needs to be. If you plan on staying in your home for a while, chances are one day you’ll need to redo the floors, so to the question of putty? Just say no!

I agree that it can be upsetting at this stage but your timber will all darken naturally and the difference will become less obvious over time and once you have furniture and rugs in place it's likely to be one of those issues that only you and no one else will notice. And I defy anyone to not have something like this in their house which has been newly built/renovated. I know this isn't terribly helpful but I don't think ripping anything up to start again or going to great lengths to seek recompense from supplier/installer is going to help your blood pressure either (by all means raise concerns with them and ask for suggestions from them).