How exciting for you! I love the island in the first picture. It looks like walnut (?) and I love it with the all white! You may want to include where you are located as people may be able to recommend vendors, carpenters, etc., who are in your area. Do you have a budget and have you thought about your appliances? You should also read the various posts where people list what they love in their kitchens and what they *don't*. Good luck and post with questions and updates!

Those are beautiful inspiration photos and doggie is a cutie-pie. Are you able to post pictures of the rooms you will be working with? Tight budgets just mean you get to shop more for deals and not get caught up in impulse buying. :-)

Hope your husband is doing well after that fall...not fun.

Wow, I love your house. Just gorgeous! Just one question, where did you get your sink? how deep is it front to back? can you reach the water faucet comfortably?

chris11895- Thanks so much for the suggestions! I guess I should have included my area as I really do need vendor recommendations. I'm in mid-michigan with not a whole lot to choose from to be honest! I'm so glad you said that about the island because I have been going back and forth about all white or a contrasting island. I have thought a little about appliances....should I choose appliances first???
Budget wise- I am working in advance on preplanning and picking/sorting everything out so we know how much to save. Basically, we buy the things as we can...and keep saving until its done. We have a bit now to get started...but have no idea where to start...floors?? appliances?? cabinets?? I am overwhelmed already it seems! haha

vampiressrn- Thank you! I haven't taken any pictures of the rooms as they are now, mostly because they are complete and total chaos! But, I will have to suck it up because I surely need layout suggestions! And yes, my husband now has 2 fully functioning hands..FINALLY! :)

lucylu25- I WISH that were my house! However, it is just an inspiration picture. Sorry! If it were, my recommendation probably wouldn't mean much...I have the arms of an ape (I'm super tall)!

Congratulations on a husband who avoids debt! There's nothing worse than worrying about paying bils.

hello and welcome! I just wanted to say that aside from your adorable pup, I also love your inspiration photos. I actually was surprised to see the one of the dining banquette. I have the same photo printed out to show my carpenter! Good luck with your projects!

I would probably select the appliances first because you need to build the cabinets to fit the appliances. Think about the space you have and do you want a cooktop with wall ovens or a range. Consider the type of cooking you do (if any at all!) and what style you prefer - pro (Wolf, Thermador, Viking) or Euro (LaCanche, AGA). Luckily there are products in both categories for a smaller budget.

And for those of us living within our income, don't forget Sears has appliances. So does Best Buy. GE, Samsung, Frigidaire, Hotpoint, and on and on. You don't HAVE to buy a $5,000 range to post here. Mine cost $389.00. My remodel is also paid for with enough left over to do the bathroom. Payments is one nightmare I won't have. You won't ever regret doing it that way.

Being someone who gut-remodeled in 1989 and still likes her kitchen, I would give you a warning. Appliances sizes really do vary when it comes to stoves and especially, refrigerators! Believe me, it is painful to contemplate that I can afford a pro-style range, but I lack exactly 1/8" to install it. The cost to move the cabs would be close to $10K - because I didn't use any spacers. So I have zilch room to maneuver things around.

Especially at a time when cabs are expensive but appliances are generally NOT manufactured to last more than 10-15 yrs, you need to plan for sufficient room for bigger/fancier replacement appliances in future years. I really, really wish now I'd added even another half-foot to the kitchen, which I could easily have done at the time.

Good luck to you, and this is a great place to come for advice and help in all areas of kitchen design.

Welcome! We finished our kitchen in November, but this is such a fun website that I keep checking in, posting, encouraging...many of us do this. Your choices are wonderful. I like the ideas others have given so far, too. You do not have to have a "high end kitchen" to feel at home here. Many of us aren't doing a $100 K kitchen, and a number of us have husbands like yours, who weren't willing to go into debt to redo a kitchen. So----feel free to ask for ideas and reviews. Also, check out the Appliance Forum for ideas. We bought our appliances (fridge, range, MW, DW) hastily, which was a mistake. Once we did that, and didn't demolish the kitchen for three more months, I had all that time to realize I should've waited a bit. Oh, well. What we chose has worked out fine, and we only spent a total of $4200 on all four appliances, but I know now that I could have waited, perhaps gotten better deals on better appliances, and so on. Live and learn.

That said, paying as you go is a great way to guarantee your financial sanity over the long haul. Everything costs more than you think it will. Have fun! Post photos of your kitchen as you go, too, so we can cheer you on.

Hey Sunshine!

Great pics, love your taste. I have no idea what your budget is or where you are willing to compromise, but I am in love with a similar aesthetic so I will share with you where I am trying to save the money:

1) Carrera instead of Calacutta marble counters. I can get Carrera for around $40/sq. ft.

2) White subway tile backsplash from Lowes. The cheapest you can go.

3) Door style downgrade. I am going with a 5 piece, raised panel, 1/2 inch overlay style from Schuler. It is about $20 less a door than the style I had my heart set on. This allows me to get white painted cabs where I want them.

4) Sears appliances. Also, just got a great dishwasher for $420 from the clearance aisle at Lowes.

5) I love all the fancy lighting out there...especially Hudson Valley Lighting. But, considering the size of my future kitchen, cannot afford it. I am going with really cheap, simple lighting.

6) Hardware. I am getting some larger sized pulls from Restoration Hardware, but will get the regular size 4" cup pulls from Horton Brasses. Much much cheaper and great quality.

7) For chairs, I want brushed aluminum Emeco style chairs. Even at Overstock.com, they are over $100 a chair (I need 8). But I searched restaurant supply shops online and found the same style chair for around $60 a pop.

8) Bing shopping = money back. Are you signed up?

9) Make sure you get what you like, make compromises where you can and try to stay away from getting things that you aren't going to use...but look damn fine!

Okay, that's my advice. Don't know if any of it will apply to you, but good luck in your renovation!

Hi there! You're going to get lots of great kitchen advice on this forum, but what I really want to know is -- is that puppy an English Bulldog and Pug mix? She's unlike any bulldog I've seen, and I grew up with English bulldogs and now have a Frenchie!

First- I love your little girl! She is SO cute. You have some great inspiration pictures- very sophisticated. Can't wait to see your space as it comes along!

Thank you all for the kind words and advice! I guess I will go for appliances first then (even though I find that the most boring). But, as a lot of you pointed out, I would hate to be stuck with beautiful cabinets and a kitchen that doesn't function because there is no room for the appliances!
Thank you also for pointing out that I don't have to have an unlimited budget to post here....I was kind of nervous to post just yet seeing as my process will be sooooo long compared to many others.

sabjimata- your post and advice really made me think about compromises....maybe I should post an entirely different question about the things people wished they would have compromised on....interesting to think about!

clergychick- She is indeed a pug mix...mixed with shar pei...the breed is called "ori pei". :)

Hi sunshine-

Your tastes look very similar to ours... and we were also on a tight budget, moved the kitchen to the DR, and remodeled other rooms including the bathroom.

We saved money by:
1) Buying carerra marble, cheaper than other marbles, quartz or any of the granites we even vaguely liked. Shop around, get multiple buds, and make sure each place knows you're getting multiple bids so they will give you their "best price".
2) Spending a LOT of time shopping for appliances. I checked Craigslist for all locations within about 3 hours of me, for months. I finally got the EXACT fridge I wanted a JennAir CD FD -normally over $2600- for $1800 because it was a floor model. (Also check all local appliance dealers "scratch and dent" rooms.) I got a NXR pro-style all gas range for $1899 by doing some careful shopping. I shopped around for the best deal, a few hundred $ off, on the Bosch dishwasher. My appliances came in at about $3200, about $500 less than we'd budgeted. And they look, and work GREAT.
3) DIY-ing a lot of it. But sounds like that's not for you?

Lots of folks here will give you good tips on ways to get the kitchen you want without spending $100k. I never would have heard of, for instance, ticor sinks, without GW.

Good luck and post photos for us!