I am almost finished renovating the kitchen in my 1910 home, so our houses are contemporaries! I'm in a traditional PDX bungalow house, and also tried to keep the overall look and feel of the period our house was built in. Inset cabs were too much $$ for my budget, but I did end up going with "mission" style (full overlay) doors from Medallion. They are being installed right now, and I think they do a good job of balancing budget with a period "inspired" look. They aren't period reproductions or anything, but they maintain the traditional feel of the house. The materials (Quartersawn oak) and finish (light hazelnut) do as much for evoking a particular era as the door style (inset or whatever). One of the things you can do is look at the rest of the trim and doors of your house. Unfortunately, there was no kitchen to speak of in the house when we bought it, so we had to look elsewhere. Our carpenter noticed that all of the interior doors in our house were original, and the raised panel on the doors and moulding on the windows were used to inspire the cabinet styles and type of crown moulding we eventually chose. We have 99" ceilings 8 1/4 feet, and we took the cabs all the way to the ceiling. Part of the reason we took the cabs all the way to the ceiling is that my husband is pretty tall (6'5") and we wanted more space between the countertop and the bottom edge of the wall cabs. But, our kitchen is also pretty small, so taking the cabs all the way up makes it feel a bit taller, or at least I think so.

What is it about bunnies?! They're just too cute. : ) Rebunky, I've been doing image searches galore, and I did not see that image. Thank you for posting it! I do like the black hood in that image. And the island. : ) We have the drawers for the cabinet under the cooktop, but DH had them removed when I took the photo. He's got the Eastlake piece framed already. He would have probably hung the hood and cover yesterday, but our countertops came in Tuesday afternoon, so he spent the whole day yesterday on getting those ready to install instead! I should have a working sink and cooktop today-hooray!!!! I don't know what type of glass door is coming in for our corner cabinet. Isn't that crazy? The guy that ordered them for us hasn't had any come in in our line of cabinets yet, and they weren't pictured in the catalog. So, we all get to be surprised. : P I picked up some (more) paint cards at the home stores a few nights ago. I was going to get sample pots of paint at Lowes or Home Depot, but Ace Hardware has got theirs on sale for $.99 this week, so I'll get them there instead. I've got a few blacks I'm looking at, as well as a dark bluish green, and a golden cream that I'm considering for the hutch. I wish you the best with your backsplash! I don't think that's an easy decision. We looked through wall tiles on our shopping trip, and very few "spoke" to us. I would definitely need to take lots of breaks and think about other people's kitchens in the decision making process, too. LOL

Sinks under windows are a holdover from when all dishes were washed by hand - before DWs! Now, the Prep Zone counterspace is usually the "thing" that makes the most sense to go under the window! +++++++++ While it's not a rule, I put my trash pullout in the Cleanup Zone instead of the Prep Zone - and I regret it every single day! If only I could do it over.... I have only about 48" b/w my peninsula overhang and the DR table if I center the DR table under the chandelier - another regret. It was supposed to be more, but we forgot to move the chandelier in the DR to accommodate the new location! It's only an issue when someone is sitting in both locations, but that's often enough, especially when we have guests. Finally, I actually followed a rule - minimum of 15" clear leg/knee space for the seating overhang - and it's still too shallow! I wish we had done 18"! My DS never sits there (he uses the DR table instead) and my DH only uses it for breakfast - and that's only b/c we moved the TV and that's the only place he can see it while eating breakfast. He has to straddle the cabinets and lean over to reach the counter. (Yup! I'll go to any lengths to get my DH to sit there! ) My DD and I sit there, but my knees do hit the back of the cabinets (but just barely).

if it is helpful, I can post up the contract. @midcenturymodernlove What is crazy is we haven't given them a hard time about THEIR mistakes or about how long this has taken. As long as it is done right. But know the owner is somehow determining that all the sloppy work that was done is somehow my fault. @M V Much of it is sloppiness. Or forgetfulness of what was requested. I kept track of everything with pictures and notes, but haven't presented them to the owner of the company yet. For the reason explained above with midcenturymodernlove. We have some solo contractors we work with that could finish the job if need be. that is the point I was at today. For instance in this picture.. it was my fault for not telling them to move the molding before tiling. Why should I have to tell them that. Isn't it common sense.? They consider this a change on my part. @GreenDesigns Just a basic contract. We asked for time frame.. he said he would get it to us. Months in to the project we realized that was a lie. They have been paid 3/4 of the total to date. Recently they tried to get us to make the last payment or part of it,, and we flat out declined until everything was done. There are no mention of changes. None of my changes were changes to anything in the contract. It was stuff like.. " Can you make the shower control higher" While walls are open. There were NO DESIGN DOCUMENTS AT ALL. This is what irked me the most. During the contract phase he told us we would have a designer to help us. Then when it came time to put walls up they said they would only have the designer come in AFTER we choose were to put the walls and how to part the space. They are licensed, don't know if we have copies. Same with insurance. Don't know about bond or the rest @inabunker We should have cut this off early when we saw the warning signs. @Anthony Perez NO manager on site at all. The workers showed up around 7:30am on their own. SOMETIMES, if we were lucky the so called manager would come at 10 for about an hour. It was evident there was no management to me... once we had to fight with the contractor to accept they had to fix the joists and take down the wall they put up. We told them to contact their boss and verify. So instead of the manager overseeing and finding mistakes, I would. Which wasn't a problem. i informed them and let them now.. However, now I regret it.. because all of those fixes are being blamed as changes on my part... or incorrect things I instructed them to do.