Love your cabinets and what a deal. I love the re-store store! In our last house we had a tiny kitchen, but managed to modify a pantry to have pullouts plus a six inch space for broom closet along one side. I know a lot of people would say that's not enough space, but it was plenty for a broom, swiffer and a hand vac. You will love this space. If you order a cabinet, a face frame will narrow the space, though. You will likely also be limited on heights available. You could probably just make this cabinet with 3/4 panels if you want to go to the floor and order your doors separately. We used a 3/4 panel in this way and used angle brackets on the floor and ceiling (at the top ours was also attach to another wall cabinet, though.). The angle brackets on the floor were tiled over since we went down to the subfloor. The ones at top were hidden behind our frig. I think trimming it to the ceiling would look best and maybe find a way to bridge the top of your frig. It will link the two sides visually and give the frig a more built in space. Even if you just put a nice straight line valance with a plain bead at top like your cabs, stained to match, you would get that finished look. We had a cabinet bridging that space. Whatever you use, there may still be that little bit of space to slide a cookie sheet on top of the frig. That's what we did--we used every square inch! Now I'm planning our last dream house kitchen and I'm still wanting to use every last bit of space well. Hate those fillers unless they pull out :) Isn't it fun to find a use for the little spaces that others would just use filler of leave an empty space on the other end?!

Lucky, are you talking about painting your kitchen walls green? This is just me, but I think green is the wrong color to use in a kitchen with dark cabs. I'm not talking about accessories in green like your linens above, because that is going to be beautiful, I'm talking walls. I know you were wanting to paint your cabinets white and dh didn't like it, but I do think a vintage green color (on the pastel side) would be great with white/cream cabinets. I have a room I'm considering painting green (the light/pastel/vintage green, for lack of an accurate color!) but the room has white beadboard so I think I could get away with it. I would do the wall behind the hutch green and see what it looks like because that would be the perfect place for it! And I'm gonna steal that hutch if you're not careful! :)

Hi - my island is about as small as a rectangular island comes, and is in a small kitchen (12.5 x 14' I think). There are only 3 practical places to put it but they're pretty limiting as you can imagine. One is to turn it parallel with the long counter (that has the sink in it and two windows above); the other way is to make it appear to be coming out of the old furnace chimney (has the mushroom painting hanging on it) - almost like a built-in counter; and the final way is to do the latter only pull it out from the chimney a little to make its edges line up with other edges in the room (e.g. edge of stove or doorway to mudroom) to give it a feeling of more symmetry and make it more centered. Here are the pics - apologies for the dirty kitchen! The first one is of the island parallel to the long counter: (I'll be replacing the stainless top of the island w/ butcher block since our new counter will be stainless and I don't want to go overboard...that counter will have a white farm sink and gooseneck faucet BTW - I'm always defending it and trying to explain how it won't look too modern in its surroundings! ;) Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen island parallel w/ long countertop

There was a thread on this topic some months ago--see below. There are some good photos of niches. Our project is bogged down, but I have a few additional comments since I posted... Because we have to watch our pennies, I'm shopping in bargain places. One problem I have encountered is that oddball lots of tiles often don't include bullnose pieces as well as regular field tile sizes. The niche that we have roughed in will require some cute tricks to make ordinary tile edges seem attractive and classy; we don't want to just snip tiles and leave raw edges. DH, my sweaty equity, did not finish the niche smoothly when he created it in drywall because we knew we would cover it in tile. Now, we're thinking that we might not do the tiling right away and he'll have to pull out drywall tools and make a proper corner edging around the niche. This kind of "go back and do over" gig is getting very frustrating. [Meanwhile, I've found a smashingly exciting tile that of course only comes without trim pieces. It's sitting right next to me, thinking. Unfortunately it has a decidedly unfinished raw edge and will require tricky handling if we choose to use it. I just covered it over so I can't see it tempting me there on the table. Have to be more practical. ] Tile shops do carry a metal edging that can be used to finish off edges when no bullnose is available, but I haven't seen examples of it in actual use on a range niche. Would love to see a sample photo to reassure me. Also, remember that if you choose to work with a thick tile or a remnant of some kind of rock from countertop on the back of the niche, that will cut down the depth of the niche shelf. If you want the area above range/cooktop to be an artistic focal point, I humbly suggest that you either make a niche OR some kind of tile design but not both. If you choose too fancy a niche back, the items standing within the niche will compete with the tile design for viewer's attention. Mine will be a working kitchen, so we're planning to put oil bottles, vinegar bottles, salt shaker, etc. there and they are supposed to get top billing. Don't forget that you can suspend a second shelf in the niche if there's room. Here is a link that might be useful: Niche topic thread