Conn 123: the door is old, and it is one of my favorite things in my kitchen. The door is original to the house, which was built in 1894. It, like everything else in the house, had about 20 layers of paint on it. We sent all the kitchen doors and hardware out to be dipped and stripped, with the intent of painting them. But we decided to just put a clear poly on the dining room door to see how it would look, and we love how it turned out. It has some dents and scrapes, but with the finish, it looks good. Definitely not for everyone, becuase it is quite "rustic." I'm sure my mother is horrified because the door is kind of beat up, and she always wants everything to look perfect and new, but I like it, and the house is really old, so it fits. We had one other door that we planned to leave unpainted, that was actually in better shape, but a worker painted it. We've left it so far (we didn't make it crystal clear that we didn't want it painted, so we didn't make a huge stink about it). I would think that if your own doors are not in good enough shape to leave unpainted, you might try a salvage place. Not sure where you would find a new door that looked old.

I don't know if this is practical, but I found at a paint store, some 'sign' paint for painting gold letters. It was available in antique gold, roman gold, bright gold, etc. You might try this type of idea. I don't know if it will take the heat though.

In reply to christophen. I wanted to use a taupe colored glaze to go over the cabinets and then to wipe off 95% of the glaze leaving it only in the crevices to give it a different look other than just white. This is done all the time by cabinet makers....they may call them distressed, etc. I just know that normally you do not put latex over oil products, but due to time limit, I forged ahead and did it. After wiping with lint-free cloths, I used a high quality brush and feather brushed in the direction of the grain and it turned out beautifully. They still look white from a distance, but up close they have a very subtle distressing effect. I am very pleased. Now I have to wait a week and then put a protective coat of water based poly over them. So far..so good....

dgormish, I did use P&L Motif for my kitchen backsplash. I thought I had some earlier photos, but didn't find them. Here's a recent photo. The watercolor field tile, W78, is an almond color. It looks grayish in this picture because of the natural light this time of year in Los Angeles - "June gloom." P&L uses a different color chart for their Motif tiles than for their watercolors, so it took some effort to find a good color match between the field tile and the Motif. I had planned to include a liner between the Motif tiles and the framing tiles, but tile installer said I didn't need it. When he did the installation, he said something didn't quite line up and that he needed to add a liner. He asked if I had extra material from my countertop. So, the extra liner around the framing is Mont Blanc quartzite, from a remnant of my countertop.