A wood stain cabinet. with stain factory applied is I think the easiest to maintain. If you like white cabinets, make sure that the white is factory applied, too. Cabinets that are painted and / or stained at home, do not have as durable a finish as factory applied finishes.

This arrangement works much better, but some adjustments are needed to make it work. First, the fireplace grouping needs to be tightened. It crowds the dining area and you need a passageway behind the couch. Turn the rug lengthwise, parallel to the fireplace. Pull the large couch about 2 1/2 feet closer to the fireplace, and place the two chairs and loveseat on the ends of the rug, and pull them closer together. This will give you a more intimate conversation area, and not impose on the other areas of the room. Remove that floor lamp from behind the couch. If you need the light in that area, put it by the fireplace. Also, the stereo system on the mantel needs to find another home. Maybe it can go IN the fireplace instead. At the other end of the room, I think the arrangement would look better if the seating were rotated 90 degrees. Keep the rug and coffee table in its current configuration, place the sofa either facing the window or with its back to the window, and put the two chairs opposite it. Finally, the dining area. Now that you've moved the big leather chairs, you should have enough room. Your rug is too small. It should be big enough to give you at least a 2 ft. border all the way around when the chairs are pushed in. And it's a really beautiful table; please uncover it. I can't see what kind of lighting that area has. It really needs a pendant or chandelier hanging directly over the table.

I'm not against colorful homes. There's bright, and then there's too bright. I wouldn't go with persimmon for the whole house. The photo you provided has lots of white trim which offsets the orange, but your house doesn't have that much trim (unless you were planning on adding some, which I think would look good no matter what color you ultimately choose, but even so, I wouldn't go with persimmon for the whole house, as it's still too bright). To repeat what @nwduck said, the other homes in the neighborhood don't appear to all be done in the bright colors, and so yours would stand out too too much. I like @deco's idea of the bright door, if you really love a bright color. For the rest of the house, any more subdued color would be fine, along with additional trim around the windows, and assuming that your siding color coordinates with your roofing color.

If you love the marble tile, go for it! You can always buy a stainless or white range hood backsplash like this http://www.wayfair.com/Air-King-Range-Hood-Back-Splash-SP2430-AXK1174.html to slip in place when you are cooking something really messy. I have a travertine backsplash and use a stainless sheet when frying. It works great and no worries about stains ruining the stone.