Hi Dave- Would you be willing to share your pics of the cabinets with our Pine Landscape tile on our Facebook fan page? We encourage our fans to share their ideas and projects there. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Ann-Arbor-MI/Motawi-Tileworks/38017817874?ref=ts Your kitchen is gorgeous - what an amazing transformation!

Thanks for the compliments, and the suggestions for the panel front beside the oven. I think that is a great idea! I guess I should clarify that I had to make the decisions for the layout of the cabinets and the type of wood for the cabinet maker in 1 week. He gave me samples of the wood to take to paint store where they stained the samples for me to take home and look at in my light. And I took home ALL the samples of cambria and placed every single one against my paint/stain/floors to choose. So I had a lot longer to make those decisions. I had a little miscommunication with my cabinet maker. I thought I was getting more drawers on the bottom and less doors. When he said "pull-outs" I thought he meant drawers, where as he really meant a cabinet door with pull-out drawer-type shelves behind them. This really makes getting items out a 2-step process, but I do like that these "pull-outs" come ALL the way out. And I love my soft close, but now I find I'm shutting doors and drawers very loudly in the bath and laundry. I NEED them everywhere! catbuilder I took a close up of backsplash with my iphone, but haven't figured out how to post it yet. I'll search for instructions.

The cabinet interiors are light (birch?) except for the glass uppers. Those are stained the same color as the exterior. It's much easier to see stuff in a light interior than a dark one - the plywood and particle board interiors in the old kitchen were really dark brown with age and stuff disappeared into the darkness. I really prefer the light interiors :). Our cabinets are frameless, but the edge fronts are stained the same as the cabinets. You don't see any of the lighter color until you actually open up the door/drawers.

Provided the infestation is not active, a few worm holes in the cabinets looks pretty cool. But too many doesn't. Also, the larve create galleries underneath the surface of the wood, not visible, that can effect the stability of the cabinets. Tell your guy you want to look at the cabinets. If they acheive the look you want, and are stable, then I think they would be attractive. Is your guy going to put the old face frames over new carcases, or is he going to install the old cabinets intact? Then again, you can acheive the same look by punching holes in new wood, provided he is a good finish man.