OMG, I am in love with the Timeless Kitchen Designs, any one of those portfolio pics would be just awesome in my new upcountry ranch/farm home.

Ummhmmm! And when they distress a piece, they clearly do it for real. Looks like they take it behind the barn and show it "what-for"! The up-close work on the doors makes it look like they pulled it out of a 200 year old house.

I like the cabinets, but 8if they were in my kitchen, they would have every cat toy in the house underneath them. YAY for toe-kicks!

I too am enamored of Timeless Kitchen Design's artistry, including this forum's own honeychurch's splendid kitchen. I could not make Kevin Ritter's subtle colors work in my not-old-enough and not-spacious-enough kitchen, but oh man, if I had the house and the space...

Here is a link that might be useful: Timeless Kitchen Design

Yes, my kitchen was done by Timeless Kitchen Design. I have a finished kitchen thread on here somewhere and have posted countless pictures (probably way too many, people most likely want me to go away).

I also have a blog about my kitchen renovation (mostly the Aug-Oct 2010 posts) and our experience working with Kevin, including his encouragement to use multiple colors (as I posted on a different thread).

We did not opt for any paint distressing but our doors/drawer fronts/face frames are all done with ancient antique recycled wood (so yes HulaGalJ, they may actually be 200 years old LOL) and so have a lot of character under the milk paint even if they haven't been beaten by chains.

Lazygardens, they do have toekicks--they are just slightly recessed and painted black so it looks like they are pieces of furniture--I would not want to be losing Legos and the like under there either!

We love our kitchen and feel honored to have his work in our home--I'll have to go check out that magazine now!

Here is a link that might be useful: kitchen remodel blog posts, start from bottom of page

Thank god I'm done. All done. Finished.

I really like the cabinets - especially the no toekick style, but the distressed finished is too distressing for me - give me a smoothly painted satin finish please.

They are local so I will have to keep that in mind. Unfortunately someone bought the 1810 house that was supposed to come into my possession somehow--so my next house may end up being 1970s brutalist urban infill--and I couldn't do a kitchen like this. But maybe I could get someone Else to do a kitchen like this:)

Distressed to excess. Not for me. The details look amazing, though.

I picked up a recent issue of one of the Kitchen design mags. It had a really, really, distressed green kitchen on the cover. As I was standing in line to pay at my rural supermarket, it caught the eye of the gals behind me and the cashier. We all paused to oggle the cover pics. Then the lady behind me said: "If that was my kitchen, I know what to do - go back and pick up another box of Spic'n Span and give them a going over!"

What's really amusing is that I looked around and noticed that all of us standing in line live in authentic old farmhouses (very rural area, with little modern building); many of us with vintage-style pantry and kitchen fittings at least 150 years old - all with "naturally distressed patina". And to us, a distressed finish looks like it needs a good scrubbing, or at least a new coat of paint.

It boggles me every time I see something like "fly-specking" as an (upcharged!) option for cab finishes. The flies on my farm will do that for free! And when my pantry cupboards' paint gets too dinged, my neighbors would think I was slatternly if I didn't paint them.

No one I know here is longing for a Poggenpohl, or even IKEA modern style kitchen. Most of us have some face-hinged inset doors and sticking, runnerless wooden drawers. Cathedral-arched, framed oak cabs with soft-close drawers are probably the most desired style, locally. (That's what gets the most attention when the hardware store sets up its display at the County Fair.) But to all of us, nothing, especially a brand new kitchen, should look ratty and worn out on the day it is finished. The idea makes us giggle.
L.

Boy, these are beautiful cabinets! We live in a lovely circa1837 historical Greek Colonial and are imbarking on a kitchen redo and really want to DO IT RIGHT but have a somewhat limited budget. I'm finding that it's difficult to get builders/designers who understand how to make a new kitchen "fit" into a home of this vintage, so I'm really nervous to get started. Honeychurch, I can't wait to peruse your photos to get inspiration! I'm new to this site, but am learning so much...thanks to all for sharing! Once I learn to upload photos, I'd love some ideas and opinions from all of you.

Love Honeychurch's! And the kitchens in the portfolio on their website are all so one of a kindy. Ooooh's and Aaaaah's from over here! Another really amazing kitchen maker--ridiculously high quality--that I just discovered on FB is DR Dimes. Way expensive. But beautiful stuff!

Here is a link that might be useful: dr dimes kitchens

Our newly installed IKEA cabs looked instantly vintage when we installed the vintage pulls and knobs. The kitchen installers were amazed at the transformation and remarked that it reminded him of vintage metal cabs, which is the exact look we were going for.
Vintage does not necessarily mean "distressed". I don't mind a true older item looking a little worn, if it is in nice condition. I would mind something looking beat up. In a million years, I would not pay to have someone beat up something perfectly nice in order for it to look older. If I did like that look, I'd let my kids loose on it for a while and it would be distressed for free!

Wow, those D.R. Dimes kitchens are amazing. Check out this approach to a two-tone island:

Of course, as the website says:
There is an enormous range in price depending on size, complexity and wood species. We can make a beautiful kitchen for you in the $40,000 to $50,000 range. It is not uncommon for some clients to invest as much as $100,000 or more in a project.

Just for cabinets.

I think part of the issue here is the word "vintage." For some reason I think a vintage kitchen is designed to look like something from anywhere between the Victorian era and the '50s. A lot of the kitchens referenced here seem older-looking, more "antique" to me--Early American and so forth.

liriodendron! Thank god I've found you! My flies will do the same and if someone dares to dent my new cabinets there will be hell to pay! If I wanted the distressed look I'd have kept the 1950 set I had!

I already did one rant recently about historical "cheating." Or rather, faux historical interiors without living historically within them. That modern wine cooler next to the cabs painted in assorted milk paint colors on the Timeless website gave me the giggles. I agree that historical styles don't need to look pre-aged--after all, they were once fresh and new; it's time that has aged them and given that overlay of crust and definition in the crevices. I think that hiding a refrigerator behind a 19th or 18th century panel is just plain silly. I feel that these interiors are stage sets. I want to live in the real world.

I've secretly hankered to live in an old house but probably never will. In my own kitchen planning, when I would get flashes of a way to incorporate historical style, I let the idea run its course in the theoretical plan and then abandoned it. The honest truth is that I'm glad to be living in my modern kitchen, a not-quite-spare room with few trims, and will not apologize for it. I've worked in enough historical kitchens at historic sites to have tried them pretty honestly. I love the separate pieces, the integrity of pieces collected to suit a period or a house, but the idea of stringing them together as banks of cabs in a modern kitchen is a Walt Disney idea. Yes I know Pennsylvania has a much older white settlement history and a lot more older homes than Minn. Nevertheless, I think that even in an old Penna house, my kitchen would be much closer to late 20th than 19th century in "feel." No lye preparation barrels, no dry sinks, not even a classic wood stove, although I have a more modern one in a nearby room. But...give me a few well chosen antiques to put out as counterpoint to the new stuff and I'm happy.

Will I really mount a classic wooden hay fork in the new lobby? stay tuned...

Am I "historically cheating" because I live in an 1873 home and I also have newfangled things like electricity and running water? To follow your argument, I would need oil lamps and an outhouse! ;-)

If only you could see my kitchen on a typical day--it is about the furthest thing from a stage set you could find, with three boys constantly running around and a big dog in the way.

We love our silly, unique, one-of-a-kind refrigerator, and as you say, we will not apologize for it!

And I will also add, I would never ever post that any element of someone's kitchen was silly in the first place.