I just had a shop built (40 x 40 x 16' eaves) and am in the process of outfitting it. I had a separate 200 amp 220V service run. I have the plumbing in the slab for a sink, a shower, and a toilet. I will run the water through the walls when I can find the waterline to tie into. I need to get a sewerage ejector and lay drain line to get the plumbing to the septic system. I have a couple of steel crates that CNC machine lathes were shipped in from Japan. The tops will make chicken or pheasant coops for my wife. The bottoms are a lattice work of 5" steel channel. One will become a work bench (2 ft 8 in x 19 ft) for the grinders, drill presses, vice, etc. and a heavy work table (4 ft x 19 ft) on wheels for the chop saw and welding work. I plan to countersink the chop saw into the table to allow longer pieces to be cut easily. The other base (6 ft 8 in x 16 ft) is in limbo (maybe a heavy trailer). I plan to weld a 40 ft length of W12 x 16# I-beam to the overhead I-beams as a track for a 2 ton overhead hoist centered with a rollup door. There are plenty of outlets and overhead lights (2 used 8 ft fluorescents, free from work, they were being replaced and would have been scrapped) now in the future workbench area, with more to be added on the other side. Still to be added are overhead lights (at least 4 more 8 ft used fluorescents)(I was given 12 total). I have a welding maching receptacle in the front and back (near the workbench) of the shop and am currently building a wheeled cart for the welding machine and torch. I also plan to put in an electric heater for the work area. I plan to build storage shelves so I can empty my garage and park the car and truck in there (Isn't that a novel idea?). I also have an old refrigerator that my sister-in-law didn't have room for, so I am temporarily (mayber for years) housing it for them. The shop will house the tractor, riding lawn mower, and the popup camper, but should still have plenty of work space. I can get plenty of scrap steel pipe from work, but can only carry 10 footers in my truck. I need to borrow a trailer to carry longer ones (up to 20 ft or so) or have my company drop off the longest ones (up to 32 ft). So I have plenty of projects using pipe in the near future. Now if I could just finish the shop.

My requirements are that: 1. PEOPLE HAVE INTEGRITY, ARE TRUTHFUL, AND USE QUALITY MATERIALS 2. PRICE & PRICING FORMULA IS FAIR FOR ALL CUSTOMERS: pricing cabinets should be fair and not be reduced to a subjective formula, i.e., "10% the value of your home" or such nonsense. This is criminal in my book. It's not "what the market can bear" pricing that is fair. I TRULY BELIEVE THAT IS CABINET MAKERS PRICED CABINETS MORE FAIRLY THAN THEY DO NOW SO THAT THE AVERAGE HOME OWNER COULD "DO THE MATH" AND KNOW WHAT "X" CABINET WOULD COST TO BUY OR HAVE INSTALLED, THEN MORE KITCHENS WOULD BE REDONE. There would be so much business that you could not keep up. But no, NOT ONE CUSTOM CABINET/ OR SMALLER SHOP I WENT TO PRICED FAIRLY. ALL PRICING WAS SUBJECTIVE AND CONVOLUTED. THEY WERE SIZING UP MY BANK ACCOUNT BASED ON HOW LARGE OF A HOME I HAVE. 3. TALENT & PRIDE = QUALITY PRODUCT 4. SERVICE In a nutshell, I, too, went with the guy that had been in business for a long time and had a HUGE portfolio. He was not organized with that portfolio and I even offered to organize his thousands of photos and put them online! THIS is how impressed I was about his work. Furthermore, my bro is a builder and cousin is a builder here in Jax and used this guy's shop before. MY SISTER's kitchen was done by this guy two years earlier. I was very confident with his talent. I'll bet I went to his shop over half a dozen times just to see his work because they made FURNITURE, these HUGE phenomenal stained glass windows for a church in D.C., pulpits, GORGEOUS entertainment systems, etc. This guy's bread and butter works were affordable, custom cabinets with beautiful paint techniques. His work was like buying Tommy Bahamas cabinets by Lexington for half price. THAT being said, when I hired him, I had my ducks in a row and contract very detailed. I'm not a kid, nor am inexperienced in business. I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING. MY KITCHEN WAS DESIGNED AND NOT COMPLICATED. My problems stemmed because he just flat out lost his talent; over 80% of his workers had QUIT and he did not tell me. He later told me he had spent my $10K he had for work so far and he was left to do my kitchen himself. And it was a crap shoot! He didn't do ONE, SINGLE CABINET CORRECTLY. NOT ONE. AND HE LIED CONSTANTLY. He mis-measured, no appliances fit, installed shoddy and unleveled, mis-ordered the door profile, and made me madder than I have EVER been in my 49 years of living. I HAVE NEVER, EVER DEALT WITH SUCH A NICE, BELIEVABLE LIAR. I trusted him and he $crewed us. We have had to have 30+ doors reordered because of all of the mis-measurements, etc. I am almost three years into this fiasco and got motivated to get back to it. I went to install two drawer fronts last month and they were 1" too short. I'm going to have to reorder two drawers more. It's like a case of never-ending-BS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The end of this story is CabFiascoGuy changed his inc.'s name before our court case came up. He sued, we countered, I won but got nothing because of how crappy our laws are. The State of Florida allowed a thief to steal $10,000 of our money. We've put over $38,000 into them trying to FIX them. I just wish I had gutted everything and started over. It would have been CHEAPER. But no, I thought we could work this out and I had our granite installed so I'm now stuck for many years. I have a horrible ordeal detailed here on garden web. What a can of worms you opened this morning. I think Ill work on these cabinets today. IÂd like to be done before I hit the three year anniversary of when they were installed. I need to re-order two drawer fronts tomorrowÂ.

Here's a totally opposing viewpoint: we couldn't have gotten anywhere walking around the stoneyard right off, we didn't have a clue. We weren't even 100% sure if we wanted Silestone or granite. We took our samples to our local kitchen store, comparable countertop selection to Lowe's. Looked at various shades and various materials with the cabinet door, the wall paint chip(s - we're narrowed down but not 100%), a couple of backsplash tiles we thought we liked. The question we were trying to answer was color family and overall look. I knew middle-tones wouldn't work, didn't like any of the light beige-tones but true-whites over to light grey was good. Liked chocolate-browns and charcoal-grays, but when grays started pushing over to black it was just too much. I liked the ones with blue flecks/accents in them. DH likes some with green flecks in them, and liked sparkles more than I did. Neither of us liked big splashy patterns, everything that appealed was more flecky/mottled than dramatic/stripes/swoops, but my tolerance was higher than his. Then, we went to the granite yard down the street and picked out our favorite light and our favorite dark in the showroom. Went out back, saw the slabs, and whaddaya know, the color we liked best inside was the one we liked best outside, too. We didn't decide for sure till we put them both into our 3D mockup at home, and dark was winning by miles. Then we found out the fabricators we were at didn't cut drainboards, so called up a ton of different places till we found two that did. The color we picked isn't one with a lot of slab variation, so that wasn't a big issue, any yard that sold Steel Gray would be just fine. We checked out the slabs at fabricator #2, brought the sample home, realized the polished finish was way too shiny for my taste, and found a different yard (#3 now) that sold the same color in a softer finish. Then we decided not to do drainboard runnels after all. See, isn't deciding things easy? Hooray for fickle. (end result - Leathered Steel Gray)

My problem is I love everything. I look at the FKB and could really picture myself in so many of those kitchens. So, using the house to speak to the style of the kitchen has been not just good advice for me, but has also helped narrow things down. Our last home was a ranch, we were just beginning to think of re-doing the kitchen and I was leaning toward a wild Moorish color palette to make the small space pop. The home we put an offer in before our current home was a 1929 center hall colonial and had art deco touches. That was going to be my art deco kitchen, black and white with jadeite touches. We ended up in a 1898 Colonial Revival, and did a kitchen using the color palette from the existing woodwork, a play of dark wood and cherry, and based the cabinets on our butler's pantry. Although the choices felt so common sense, I often wondered, what if one of the earlier styles was more "me"? Now we're nearing the end of our reno, I couldn't imagine any other kitchen for us. I guess my moral of the story is, don't get frustrated, if you stick with your love and your vision, you'll find the best kitchen for you. As a side note, one of the neat things about any style, if you go back historically, is how many different variations there are on them. For instance, around craftsman is: Mission (spanish-influences), arts and crafts (the original English movement, more flowerly and ornate), prairie style (Frank Lloyd Wright's style, usually lighter in color and with actual light), roycroft. The list goes on. It might be fun to just do an internet search on these different similar movements. You might find a bit of inspiration that really grabs you and would answer most of your style questions. Below is a current Prairie photo- if you love the copper counters and are handy, you should check out Circuspeanut's amazing DIY copper counter thread. Here is a link that might be useful: Prairie kitchen photo