Kara,

I think it also depends on the size and layout of your kitchen, what flooring you're planning and on windows. Look at the whole picture. I wonder if there is a kitchen site where you can insert cabinets, print it off and then crop in the granite on your own. (I know I did that on a Benjamin Moore site with my paint colour.)

Or if you're handy with a pencil crayon, get a line drawing made of your proposed cabinets.... and...

I need to see a picture myself, I'm lousy at looking at blueprints and being able to visualize.

I think your original idea will look great. We are actually in the process of doing something similar with ivory distressed cabinets with soapstone countertops. The island is a dark cherry with crema bordeaux. The ivory doors are not up yet but we saw something similar to yours when we were looking at design kitchens and it was beautiful. The contrasting island color looks great. Good luck!

Sounds gorgeous either way to me. The black island might be more trendy, so if you want a more timeless look, doing all cream cabinets might be safer...If you're interested in timelessness or safety. This is coming from someone who has 4 colors of cabinets and 3 different countertop materials in her new kitchen...So 'safety' and resale consideration are not at the top of my priority list. :-) But my being happy with it for a long time is. I actually changed my range area from black to gray because I was afraid I might tire of the boldness of the black. I'm not saying you will, just giving an example of thinking and planning for the long term.

Thanks for the quick replies! Raehelen, Follow this link for some drawings my KD did. The drawings are much darker when you actually click on them:) The kitchen is 21x21.

Gam, Originally I was going with soapstone until I saw this bordeaux today. Tomorrow I will probably be back to soapstone! If you have any pictures or links to your inspiration, I would love to see them:)
It sounds like our tastes are very similar!

Rhome, I've never been one to play it safe when it comes to decor!!! With that said, it's easy to try something different when it comes to paint color, with something as expensive as the cab and counters, I'm less of a maverick!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Photobucket

Designed kitchen recently: perimeter cream with a brown glaze, "fired" black on the tops and black distressed on the island with Giallo Veneziano, looked great.
One customer did the same perimeter look, with espresso cherry color on island, tops were all Juperana.
I think the combo of ivory and black is classic by the way

hi karalouise...we just did a similar look and I love it!
Here's our very new (we don't even have a BS picked out yet) kitchen. We just moved in a few weeks ago so I have things sitting on the counter that need to be hung!

can men respond too?

I like the original idea of the two colors and the bordeaux granite. I think it would be beautiful. I love black cabs anyway! (I have one and love it!)

Ed, by all means please respond!! I can use all the help I can get! From now on, I will be more inclusive!! Shame on me!
Fairytale, LOVE your black and white and your undercabinet lighting! What is your granite? It looks great on the black

Go for it!

To give you an idea of what your kitchen would look like with a cream island, here's mine.
{{!gwi}}
I originally planned on a black island, as you describe. That was until the KD said the cabinet company had a special and the 11th cabinet was free. That translated to a free sink base/island ($750). So cream it became.

kara, our granite is called Gallo Bahia? (Or Giallo Bahia?) It has a lot of cream, rust, brown & black colors with little sparkly inclusions everywhere.

I drifted off to sleep last night quite secure with my decision to do the cream perimeter with Ab Bl. and a black island with Jup. Bord until I woke up and saw Dian's kitchen. It is just so clean and classic! I guess we should be happy that we are spoiled for choice!
Dian, is that a bead board sheet on the back of your island or is that part of the actual cabinet. My KD has drawn the plans so that the GC will drywall the back of the island, but if were to do black, I would like to make it more "furniture like". Maybe a will post a question to all.

dian, what color are your cabinets?

Ed, by all means please respond!! I can use all the help I can get! From now on, I will be more inclusive!! Shame on me!

thanks. i was just yanking your chain a bit.

personally, i LOVE the look of white cabinets with a black island, especially a *distressed*-looking black island. it really just helps to soften the starkness of the white and offers great contrast.

i've seen a few people who have done black granite or soapstone on the white cabinets and then marble on the black, and it's just a great look. that will never go out of style.

I love juparana bordeaux granite and the look of the black distressed island cabinet. I think a lot depends on what you are going for. If you go with all white - are you going for calm and classic. Then the question is if you want to have a backsplash that stands out or something that continues the calm and classic theme. If you go with the black distressed island with the juparana bordeaux granite I think it would really make the island a focal point and then it would be a question of the lighting over the island to help set it off and maybe the backsplash would be designed to not take attention off all the contrast and the island.

Ed, my dream kitchen was white cabinets with soapstone and black distressed island with marble (like Soonermagic's kitchen).....but with 3 kids and 3 dogs I figured it wouldn't be the smartest choice for our family! But it is such a classic, timeless look. Actually, my dream is White Quartz from the Caesarstone Concetto collection but at $500-600 a sq. ft. and 105 sq. ft. in my kitchen????? Not gonna work!

Yes, by all means go with the black island. We did it...ivory cabinets, black Silestone countertops (which I love!), and a black island with a butcher block surface. If we hadn't chosen wood, I'd have used limestone. The great thing about the black island is that it makes the whole thing practically disappear. You'd think the opposite would be true, but it isn't. So it made our medium-sized kitchen look much more spacious.

W/ 3 kids and 3 dogs, another advantage to going w/ a darker island is that it would hide dirt and cabinet dings better than the ivory :-)

Yes, we had beadboard applied to the back of the cabinet. We used matching paint in semigloss.