Hello to ALL, So very grateful to ALL of you....these pictures and Ideas are invaluable to us! Like that Tile Back splash, a lot, so classic! sparlekitty - just love your Kitchen, please make a copy and send to me, right away...I mean the real thing!! What are those amazing counter-tops and your floor and your Range, we still are looking for one? Do I SEE a WINDOW above your Range HOOD! This just looks wonderful! TODAY, we were seriously talking about cutting out a Window sized Area, into our WALL above the Range - this is the WALL between the Kitchen and the Dining Room! This would give the Kitchen a direct VIEW out of the front Dining Room Windows and look out to all the trees in the wooded area, across the street!! Also, the front of our new, old house faces SOUTH - so all that lovely light might be very welcome in the long winters, here! Or do you think that we will have enough light from the door into the Dining Room and we should just add more cabinets on the Range Wall? Has anyone cut out part of the wall in one of these 80+ year old houses? Is this really difficult? Yes, we still are giving very serious thought to selecting the Cherry Cabinets for the upper & lower cabinets on both sides that will have a counter-top! You are right, since the Pantry Cabinet and the Frig. Built-ins are already white, trying to match those does not look too great...we tried this week-end, again but were not happy with the white Cabinets that we found at three places! DH really likes the Adel Cabinets from Ikea but we have to try and figure, a layout using their non-custom sizes? Should we just remove the Soffit above our Sink Wall - will the Kitchen, Look Better without the Soffit? And then we can use the 39" Ikea Cabinets, right? Here is another picture of the last corner in the Kitchen - See where the Counter and lower Cabinet is recessed about 6" ? This allows the large old door to close, where the back hallway comes in? We do not want to take down any of the original wood doors, they are just too beautiful to us. And the powder room is across the hallway. You can See the Soffit above and this only goes across the Sink side of the room. Has anyone used Ikea, lately - are these any good, we went to one of their large stores near Cincinnati, today, never been there before, lots of walking and looking! We have always wanted the very simple lines, like you see in the Adel shaker style and this may be the answer to the budget! These are not real Cherry Wood, which we really love - does anyone have any suggestions for finding simple Cherry Wood cabinets at the Most reasonable cost, that have a descent looking finish? We would be happy even if they are nearly natural and even with the lightest of stain - since we have had Cherry many times before and we know that they will darken on their own, in time! Forgot to share that we are going to try and finish the 3 season Sun Room, into an insulated 4 Season Room with new windows and floor - before the weather gets cold here!! So we really need to save money on the kitchen cabinets, we feel that the windows are just as important and we will really miss our Sun Room when we move in less than a month! Every time I think about the count down - I get giddy, scared and excited, all at once! Just like all of you, we are afraid of making a mistake on a big ticket item! This G W and All of you, really keeps our sanity and we are so grateful for ALL of the Ideas that keep us thinking - too easy to get frustrated and we want to stay positive! Thank you all, again, this help is really appreciated - Does anyone think that we should try to Open up the Wall above the Range, how much and how far above the back splash on the Range is good! As you can see from the pictures, there is no Hood above the Range and maybe we can keep it that way since we mostly bake or use the GE Advantium? We will be able to hang the GE Advantium under the cabinet to the left of the sink. Is it better to have the new Opening that will look out to the South or to have the Range hood and extra Cabinets? Cannot figure out how to do both on the same wall - guess we can take the Tall white Pantry Cabinet out of the corner and use in the hallway since it is finished on 3 sides! Then we may be able to make more room for a new Opening - but should the Range be centered on the Kitchen wall? Will try to add these Pictures, Thank You All for looking and helping us to decide! roseofblue

We have xenon strips under 6 cabinets on 3 switches. I've probably turned them on less than 10 times in the 6 years that our kitchen has been done (some of them have been on only once or twice.) They are not a necessity in our kitchen even though I cook fairly late at night in the dark. It definitely depends on your kitchen and how you like to use light. I personally don't like light coming from a source under my eye level. We have great ceiling lights throughout our kitchen and the uc lights have no functional value (and in my case, no aesthetic value either.) Our major work zones are the peninsula, range, and 2 sinks and all have ceiling or hood lights above them. The counters with upper cabinets have can lights placed in such a way that shadows are not cast on the surface (they center on the edge of the counter.) I prefer the even light from the ceiling to the more concentrated beam of light from the uc lights. In some kitchens they are a necessity but it's misleading to say they are a necessity in all kitchens. We used 2 fluorescent uc lights a lot in our old kitchen since the only other light source was a centered ceiling fixture with 1 bulb. Since I hated that lighting (including the concentrated light from the uc fixtures) I was determined that our new kitchen would be well lit. I was aware that my eyes would age which is why I have 4 additional can lights that I rarely turn on. They only come on when I want our kitchen to be over-the-top bright.

Buying used cabinets isn't all that complicated if you're planning on changing the look anyway. You might not find the uppers crl_ describe above, but you might find all the lowers, for example, and then buy the uppers new. We currently have four different styles of door/drawer fronts in our kitchen with different finishes. We are reusing all our lower cabinets from our old kitchen, a few moved and re-purposed. The three unmatched cabinets consist of three 4-drawer stacks, one 3-drawer stack, and a 36" sink base and cost us a total of $375. You would be hard-pressed to find just one of these cabinets new at that price. We want a modern look so we will put new slab fronts on. Probably from Barker. We will probably get paint-grade fronts and paint everything but we are also considering finished fronts and then refacing the fronts of the cabinet boxes ourselves. Either way, we are saving thousands by doing this. I did once see at the Habitat Re-Store in Seattle a huge collection of cabinets removed from the same kitchen. Enough to outfit 2-3 more normal sized kitchens. They looked brand new to me. Soft-close drawers and cabinets. I didn't check closely for brand but the drawers seemed to have good quality glides. I suspect it was removed because it was very Tuscan with off-white finish with a glaze. Not to everyone's taste. But could have been stained with GF or painted and would have looked lovely in a more traditional or even transitional kitchen. I've seen other complete kitchens in good condition but this was definitely the largest matching set I've seen. I've also seen many complete bathroom sets in great condition. Quite often we advise people here not to do a new kitchen just to sell because the new owners might just rip it out to put in their own kitchen anyway. I suspect you'll see quality kitchens at Re-Stores or other salvage stores more often near high-end housing where this is probably more typical. The Seattle store gets all the kitchens in King County so that includes areas all the HCOL areas. The Habitat Re-Store in Bellevue sends kitchens to the Seattle location but keeps other items and, wow!, I have seen some amazing things there. A friend got a pristine 36" SS FD fridge/freezer, with ice-maker, water dispenser, and the drawer between freezer/fridge sections for $700 and everything works. There was a teensy crack in one of the door shelves. She put some clear shipping tape on it and it's covered by food so you don't even see it, Time to shop for my finds? Not much. We go to plays in Seattle quite often so, when we did, we took the pick-up and left early enough to stop at the Tacoma and Seattle Re-Stores each time until we found the sizes we needed. It took three trips. So not counting travel time since we were going that way anyway, maybe 4-5 hours total. I realize this isn't for everyone and that's OK but it's really not that difficult. And, if you're going to reface and get new fronts, you could always, for example, purchase those from a place like Barker or other RTA site and then also purchase whatever cabinets you weren't able to find second-hand from them, too. Oh, we recently decided to put storage on the back side of our peninsula instead of an overhang and I want at least part of it to be glass fronts. We're going to Seattle several times in Jan-Feb so we'll be checking out those places for more cabinets. If we can't find anything that will work and that will look the way I want, we'll just order new. We saved enough on everything else so that buying these new isn't something that puts us over budget. Sorry for writing a book but cheapie-me is just really into this type of stuff. :)

Having a good Cat 5 wiring layout with a place to interconnect them is very valuable if you do any home automation, add telephone lines, want to interconnect computers, or want to add TV outlets. Some of the newer TV cable technology (for example, AT&T Uverse) can send the TV signal over Cat 5, so anywhere you have a Cat 5 drop you could also have a TV. Cat 5 is much less obtrusive and easier to camouflage than coax cable when you need to have it visible in a room. There are many recessed Cat 5 enclosures, or maybe you can just cut out the sheetrock and recess the one you have. Then you can put a removable panel or door in the back of the cabinet so that you can reach it if you need to do something with the wiring. Also ensure they did not put any AC power outlet in the Cat 5 enclosure, because you cannot put sheetrock over AC power junction points or receptacles. They must have an accessible cover. Bruce