I just found this post, and hope it's not too late to leave a comment and get an answer to a question. First, I adore your wonderful kitchen...it's truly a "heart of the home" kind of room. The warm wood countertops are really beautiful, and something I will consider when we re-do ours. Right now, we are looking for a refrigerator that will blend with our Wedgewood 40" stove, and are considering the Fisher Paykel. Since you have one, can you tell me if you like it. We are looking at the model that has the pull out freezer, rather than the swing door, and I think its slightly larger, but basically the same in other respects. We have a four bedroom house, over 2300 square ft., but the kitchen is a galley, about 20 ft long, with 62" of floor space between each side. We have a 36" French door refrigerator right now, but I would like to replace it with one that is 33" so I can gain a couple of inches to the right, where we have only about 12 inches of counter between the fridge and the sink. The alternative to what we have would be either the Fisher Paykel, which is narrower and almost counter depth, or another brand, like Maytag, etc., that is 33" but also 33" in depth....the reason to go to that one is the added interior space. Is the 17.5 cu. ft. in the Fisher Paykel enough? There are only 3 of us at home, but some of my friends feel that it's too small for the size of house we have. Are you happy with the size...does it hold enough...or would you go larger if you were to do it again? Thanks for any opinion or advice...we need to buy something within the next two weeks!

We have medium dark mahogany cabinets and a dark silver/gray black counter. It did seem too dark at first, but adding a lighter wall color (includes backsplash) and painting the window trim off white seemed to make a big difference. It felt bit cavish before the windows were painted--DH liked it, I didn't. We have fairly light floors and quite a few windows. Also, I think it depends on how broken up the darkish cabinets are--are there full walls of tall cabinets? Are the cabinets broken up by lighter appliances? I think adding some glass doors also helps the room feel a bit lighter.

I am new to this forum. We're in the final stages of building a new house (only wish I knew about you guys sooner!) and I love seeing all of your awesome work! We put in espresso stained rift oak slab front cabinets (not too far off of celticmoon's awesome refinishing of her 20 year old oak cabinets!). Our paint we chose is BM Timothy Straw (2149-40) which is a goldish-lime green color. It is bright, but not too bright for our taste. I think we'll love it in our Seattle November weather! We also chose it (over 15 other test paints ranging from tan to gold to sage and even some blues) because it goes really well with the yellow-orange tones of the VG fir woodwork and Red Birch floors in the attached great room. I am SO happy every time I see it!!! Our backsplash will be a blend of 2x12 glass sticks, laid horizontally in a random brick/stick pattern, from Statements Flow Glass line (link below). It's mostly a blend of Glacier, Pepper and Ivory with 5% Mint and Chocolate added for little pops of color. Countertops are my next decision...I know I want light, but am not sure if I'll go for natural stone or quartz yet. I lost my camera battery charger this weekend, but will take some pics of the house once I have my new one and am charged up! :) Deb in Seattle Here is a link that might be useful: Statements Flow Glass line

I have natural cherry cabs with cork floors and only southern light with no windows on the east or west, too. We went with a mix of soapstone and cherry butcherblock counters. I'm not really familiar with the Caeserstone colors so I can't really help you there. You can find some pics of my kitchen here in a thread where I swore to post finished pics soon and here where I posted pics of the modified cab for the MW drawer. I am so very close to posting finished kitchen pics that I can almost taste it, but it'll have to be after Halloween because my whole house is covered in dungeon walls and lit with red bulbs.