The molding on our Shaker cabinets is simple looking but there's a lot of it. We had to run the venting for the range exhaust above the cabinets to the outside. As a result, we have 3 inches of "library" molding, and 4 inches of crown molding. I didn't like it at first, but I now believe it adds a lot of architectural interest, and makes the kitchen look more finished. Rich Here is a link that might be useful: kitchen pics

These are wonderful! I'm embarrassed to say I had only been searching ON Gardenweb's site for kitchens, it hadn't occurred to me to use Google (I feel like a dunce)... Mpagmom your link had kitchens that I hadn't seen but are also beautiful and great inspiration, so thank you! I'm working on my layout and will post it soon, I'm so looking forward to getting opinions and suggestions from all the knowledgeable people here!

Natural cherry shaker cabinets with natural maple floor. These cabinets are 6 years old so they have fully darkened - it happens pretty quickly: For comparison regarding darkening, here is natural cherry in our family room cabinets which were brand new in this picture; the same natural maple floor:

Hi, hobokenkitchen Guidelines are just guidelines, and my husband and I never have felt crowded with the aisle and dimensions that we have in our kitchen -- true we each have a body mass index under 25! But things feel efficient in there: we can easily turn from one line of counters or from the range to the island without taking more than a couple of steps, and the 24" square island utility sink is easily accessible from both sides of the narrow island, from the prep counter against the windows and from the range on the interior wall. The refrigerator/freezer doors are not 36" wide, either, so it doesn't swing too much into the space, and even when the dishwasher door is fully open (on the window side, to the left of the island utility sink) it is possible to sidle around it. I think my only concern having lived with this arrangement for over a year is: it will be interesting to see how well the cork floor holds up over the years, because we really do cover the same territory on that floor over and over. So far no sign of extra wear. But I have extra cork tiles saved! Good luck to you, and thanks to CoCo for supplying those links. lynn