tiny steps in kitchen renovation

The Footless Man and I have been having a conflict in values discussion over some of the next steps in kitchen renovating.  The subjects at hand are counters, paint and lighting.  Mostly counter.  I think in part it comes out to be our very different senses of esthetics.  The Footless Man likes very few of the colors that I love.  I would  love to have multi flecked green and brown counters and my material of choice is formica.  Both choices come from a pragmatic point of view.  Speckles hide the dirt, Formica is cheap and wears well. It comes in extruded lengths that would more than adequitely do the job of covering the needed places.  Consumer Reports says that it gives best durability wear and use with the least maintenence.
The Footless Man says that I am low balling the counters and I should invest in better quality in the interests of resaleability  He does have a point there. 
If there was any kind of money to involve he would have a better point.  As it is, Silestone/swanstone, my next choice, is well past my ability to even think of saving up for.
As for the paint issue,  he thinks that white is lovely, the whiter the better.  I think that it would be like living in a bowl of buiscut dough.  The light yellow that I think would lighten up the  rather dark living room  would make the kitchen so bright that I would need sunglasses to endure it.  Maybe a soft green?
Meanwhile, I think that I will deconstruct  the very last bit of hanging wall and get it out of the way.