I had so freakin' long to plan, re-plan, and tweak my kitchen it morphed along the way. As it started taking shape, and I was actually going to pick finishes, I had a very very clear vision of what I wanted it to look like. It wasn't actually conventional so there wasn't much out there that gave me a visual as to what it would look like. I have to say, that it is exactly what I always dreamed of and more. There is not one little bitty thing that I regret or which I could change. It's so nice to be truly delighted with your space and enjoy cooking/baking in it so very much.

Same here. I found GW at the backsplash stage. I like my kitchen, but it is a bit off in the way things relate to each other.
I would have had a complete vison of the cabinets, granite and backsplash. The only thing I was sure of was having white cabinets(should have chosen cream)and that my stove and DW would be paneled.

A hit pretty much. I lived in the house for a year before landing on the plans for the ground floor and the kitchen design, so I had a pretty clear vision. I think my kitchen lay out was improved through advice received here, but listening to that advice did alter my 'dream' layout - an uninterrupted line of open shelves along my long run. Given the advice I rec'd here I opted against a down draft and went with a proper hood for my cooktop - this interrupts that clean line I wanted for the open shelf. No big deal, but I will admit to still being a little resentful of that hood ... the hood doesn't seem to care though.

I planned ours for months and months and into a few years, so had a long time to dream and think about it. Plus, I had the blessing of 3D software, so I could look at things from every angle. I printed out renderings and hung them where I could gaze at them and adjust, as things occurred to me, until it felt as 'just right' as it could. I couldn't have done anything close to what I have without the 3D views.

It wasn't necessarily easy to find all the exact materials in the exact colors I had in mind...But in the end it was pretty close. It took a while to get past second-guessing the little differences from vision to reality, specifically with my stove backsplash that was darker and more varied in color than I'd hoped for.

I loved walking around in the space as it was formed (we built new...DIY). As soon as we had subfloor and studs for the kitchen, I bought a wiiiiide permanent marker and marked out the cabinets and appliances on the floor, so I could move around it and get an idea of the feel and how it would work. It helped a lot.

I made a mistake with a cabinet size, which moved my window and, as a result, decreased the size of my dish hutch. It's so hard to keep track of everything at once, and how if you change one 'little' thing, it may adjust a lot of others.

I might make a few improvements if I was doing it all over, but they were things I couldn't expect to have seen before I experienced it, or saw someone else on the forum do it 'better.'

A regret: I didn't give any credence to display-type of storage (thinking of it as 'trivial' and a 'waste' of useful space), so have very little. I just didn't realize how much pleasure, and function, it could've added to my kitchen.

Hit. I had some preliminary plans and styles that went by the way during the design process, but everything is the way I designed it (minus one or two tiny production errors that don't matter). I did spend the time on the details, though, which is where the difference comes in, I think.

My vision started out with raised panel cherry cabs and a tile floor with dirt-colored grout. There were a list of other functional features I knew I wanted, which changed as I learned more on GW. I used the Sweeby Test to select the finishes. The kitchen turned out to feel exactly like I wanted it to, with cherry cabs and gray tile and grout. It looks better than I would have expected. My few regrets are all functional, not appearance. The Sweeby test really helped. Thank you, Sweeby, wherever you are!

Hit! Almost derailed w/ granite choice, but ended up with the "right one." :-)

I knew what type of cabinets I wanted early on. I had certain goals that were important to me. About a year before the actual demo of the old kitchen I started really paying attention to what others were doing here on the KF. I looked for inspiration everywhere. It's all a process.

My color scheme was inspired by a bowl I bought at an art fair, I love pottery. I'm pretty good at visualizing and it all turned out perfect. But I did have more sleepless nights than I care to admit. The kitchen is my creation, not a reproduction of anything I'd seen. Nothing like putting pressure on yourself, but I've always been the artsy one that has to be different.

Suddenly, one day right after it was done, I started to make something and realized I has accomplished my dream. I had a real moment....joy. joy, joy!!!!

Thanks to many here on the KF!

Nancy

Hit! The room is small, and we needed to fit in an eat in area cause we don't have a dining room in the house... so, if it were bigger it woulda been better, but that wasn't possible, so... with the space we had to work with, we have a big hit! We have a dishwasher we never had before, a bigger fridge, a much better microwave and range, a ventilation hood we never had before, and more storage space. And we love the colors and finishes. We love the new kitchen!!! I mention to my husband each day, a year now since the renovation, how much I love the new kitchen :)

Hit. It's far from done, but I realized the very first night I was back on the stove that I was grinning. It felt exactly the way I thought it would. And then I almost started to cry.

Hit. I had a loose vision of what it was supposed to look like, but a very clear understanding of what I didn't like esthetically and also, which items for me were non-negotiable. I've lived in the house for over a decade, so over time, you realize what works and what has to go, and I did spend some time planning it. It came out even better than I envisioned.

I love my kitchen. I wanted something unique, but that fit our 1902 New England farmhouse. I wanted it to fee vaguely European, but simple and unfussy and functional.

It has the same feel as the kitchen in my head, but the space is not what I imagined. It's better. Our kitchen is so open, with four openings that are 60" or greater and one standard doorway. It is landlocked, but light filled. It looks bigger than the one in my head, but shorter. The layout with one worktable and one island, has worked perfectly.

Hit! A very tight budget helped tremendously because it required me to accomplish my original vision through readily available finishes. I simply could not get sidetracked from my original picture by falling in love with several of the many, many wonderful possibilities money opens up.

What is special about my kitchen is the character of the room itself, defined by all its windows and relation to the outdoors. Lots of people like my kitchen, but the individual finishes are seldom commented on because they're basically background, leaving attention to the pictures on the walls, Christmas decorations on the hood, etc. And if any of those isn't a hit, I can just redo.

Way too early for me to tell on the kitchen, but, from a different project, I know the feeling that I want to have afterwards. About 6 years ago, I built a sauna in our basement. Much smaller project than a kitchen, obviously, but still non-trivial. I planned it carefully and spent 200 hours building it. The payoff? 6 years later, we still use it all the time, and I have not been able to think of ONE thing that I would change if I could do it over. Not a single item, dimension, or feature.

That is the feeling I want with the kitchen. Because I discovered GW before the project, there is a chance that that will be true! If I had discovered it afterwards, or late in the project, I may have preferred that I had never found it! Thanks, everyone.

The one thing I knew for sure I wanted heading in, is the one thing we did not end up with! I had a vision of a lavender tile backsplash with black liner tiles and black bullnose edge tiles. I searched high and low and could not find the lavender tiles anywhere. There were a few times we thought we found one, but the samples would disappoint. We ended up with custom tiles for a feature for our sink wall surround by gray field tiles and black edge tiles and accents. It will turn out nice (we hope), but is not what we had planned.

Then, I knew for sure we'd be getting Marmoleum, and we did, but it needs to be ripped out. New floor - still to be determined.

Then, we were certain that we'd get soapstone, which turned into white marble (even had a deposit on a special slab for the peninsula). After we decided that the marble may be risky with how our young sons do not take care of things, I found the perfect laminate and planned on using chrome edgebanding for the counters to coordinate with our kitchen table. We went to Ikea to finalize our cabs and knew they were running a 40% off sale on counters. They did not carry the laminate brand we wanted, but dh saw their display kitchen in Corian Rain Cloud, fell in love, so that is what we have.

I bought a downdraft vent for our island prior to coming to GW and was promptly dissuaded from using it. It still sits in a box in our garage. It will go on CL one day soon. I also bought a Tapmaster that we decided not to use at the last minute and sold already. At one point, we wanted a bottleless water cooler, but ended up with filtered water under the sink with a dedicated faucet.

We did stay true to white slab cabs, our Chambers stove, vintage chrome hardware, vintage lighting (no hi hats), skylights (fewer than we had originally planned), sep fridge and freezer, all drawers, no uppers, micro shelf and vintage sink with integrated drainboard. A major part of our vision was an arch made of 3 sided glass cabs to go on top of our peninsula with reeded glass. Money has delayed that, but we hope to add that when we have some extra cash.

I found GW fairly early on in the process. It helped drive so many decisions, big and small. Our kitchen is so much better for having found it!

Function - a definite hit. Form - still deciding. I love the white shaker cabinets and the mid-tone maple floor with the giallo ornamentale granite. But still working on the finishing touches and that is a work in progress but it's getting there.

Hmm, never thought about this. Now that I am, I cannot remember exactly what I was thinking it would look like when I started. I had styles I liked and inspiration photos but Ive lost the mental pre-image. Similar to how I used to have a mental image of what my kids might look like before I had kids and now, with actual kids and kitchens in front of me, I cannot remember what I thought either was going to look like before!

Hit. We had the advantage that the overall layout we wanted was similar to that of the prior kitchen which we'd lived in for 20 years - we already knew a lot about how we would use the space.

There are small details that I might tweak if I was doing it over. Perhaps I'd switch to a drawer microwave where our drop down door under counter microwave is - they were very new and I didn't like some of the details of the drawer microwaves that were available when we were redoing. I also fantasize about the Blue Star wall ovens in place of our Miele - the french doors would be nice given my short height and reach, but I'm not sure it would be worth giving up self clean. They didn't exist when we did our remodel.

I love the materials that we used - the natural cherry cabinets and the blue Azul do Mar quartzite.

I wish I'd thought of using slightly deeper than standard upper cabinets - another inch or two of depth would have been nice for storing some of the larger platters.

1000% hit. I had the blessing (curse?) of literally having 20 years to think about what I wanted and experience what I didn't like in my old kitchen.

From the look to the function, this kitchen is *exactly* what I dreamed of and envisioned. I truly could not be happier with what I ended up with.

Ann

mine is a very close hit. largely due to GW and me taking FOREVER to plan, over 1 year of extensive research and mile high pile of inspiration photos. had numerous questions and ruminations to the point of making cabinet maker and GC utterly crazy ( i should have warned them i am a virgo...)

i also had the chance to fine tune my cabinet door details as the finisher screwed up requiring a full rebuild of doors. it delayed project but in the long run it worked out for the better, the final doors are much better than the ones i had originally selected.

I'm happy. We were trying to reconcile some conflicting objectives and it took a long time to figure out how. We wanted to keep and reuse the original gumwood, but we also wanted the lightness and brightness of a white kitchen. We wanted the kitchen to look like it had always been in our 1927 house, but we wanted better space to work, more storage with less clutter, and new appliances, without changing the footprint or making profound changes to the layout. I wanted the kitchen to be consistent with the tudor house and have the look of a 1920's service kitchen, like the picture I had seen of chef Keith McNally's kitchen but I loved the look of Belgian kitchens like the ones I had seen in books about Axel Vervoordt and Walda Pairon's design. Most of all I wanted lots of light and a sense of serenity and order.

It's not a big kitchen, we didn't have a huge budget, and we did most of the work ourselves. We had a lot of problems and it took a long time. It's not perfect but I think we got much of what we wanted. We loved doing this together and being able to save the 80 year old gumwood cabinets.

I actually cried (for joy) when another GW reader, Honorbiltkit, saw the first pictures and said that it reminded her of a Vermeer. She really got it.

Sayde, i can't find you in the FK? I'd love to see your finished kitchen.

That goes for the rest of you --- how many of you have posted photos?

thanks!

Great post! I've enjoyed reading how things have worked out for everyone. I'm not there yet, in fact demo starts in a few weeks. The planning is almost done though. I started out with a very vague idea of what I wanted - better flow/layout, better lighting, specific wants with the appliances, more storage and MUST MUST MUST get rid of the icky countertops. Those things are so far right on the mark with what I currently have in the plans. But the details I envisioned have definitely changed. I thought I liked warmer colours. But then, as I looked around at the paints colours I've already chosen in the house, perused magazines and contemplated colour palates I discovered I actually prefer the cooler tones. Go figure. I thought I hated cream/white cabinets and wanted the dark dark dark wood stains. I still love dark wood stains, but my kitchen will be bright white. And I can't wait for those white cabinets! I've learned a lot about myself in this project. I hope it's a HIT when it's all done! But now for the really hard part ... surviving the remodel.

Mtnrdredux - see link below and scroll down to Breezygirl's post for some photos of Sayde's Vermeer kitchen. Hope this is O.K. Sayde!

Here is a link that might be useful: Sayde's masterpiece in gumwood

Hi cluelessincolorado, of course it is OK. I am really so incredibly gratified to see that people like my kitchen! The best part is showing the responses to DH, who worked so hard. Hope to get some better photos out there before too long.

I am in the midst of my kitchen project and don't even know where my target is anymore.

Sayde's kitchen vision was exactly point-for-point ours as well. We had a mix of original cabinetry (1920's) as well as some metal cabinets installed in the 50's. In our situation there was just no way to salvage the original cabinets, and they weren't as cool at Sayde's gumwood cabs. So we did the next best thing and had the style replicated by a cabinetmaker, but modernized with toe-kicks, pull outs, etc...

The goal was to create a thoroughly modern kitchen, but one that fits into the context of an old house. Although we used 'trendy' materials (soapstone, white cabs, marble backsplash, farmhouse sink), we hoped the kitchen would 'look like it had always been there' and would not be obviously a remodel from the 2010's.

There were a few concessions to modernity that were made - the door to the hallway (servant's entrance) was closed off and the space was used for the in-built fridge. But we kept the basic footprint/size of the room the same; we didn't knock down the wall to the formal dining room.

There were some decisions that we made over the course of the remodel. We'd been pretty sure we wanted a checkerboard floor, but weren't 100% sure about using Marmoleum until during the demolition we saw some of the original patterned linoleum floor (small turquoise mosaic) under the removed cabinets. Then that decision just felt 'right'.

We also knew that we wanted to incorporate the existing 1950's Chambers cooktop into the design, so that introduced an element of 'mid-century' aesthetic. This made it easier to introduce the copious amounts of stainless into the design (backsplash, hood, fridge, cooktop, appliances), the light blue color that we painted the walls is another reference to the 50's.

Looking back there's not much in the design that I would have changed and it turned out pretty much as we'd hoped. Fitting into the older house trimmed the 'decision tree' quite a bit and made things a lot easier than if we'd had a clean slate. The existing cabinetry provided a lot of inspiration.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg0821511816269.html

Yes. "... kitchen turn out like you originally envisioned it?"

Ha. "How detailed was the picture in your head? Was it crystal clear or..."

In some instances, things were unclear going into it and remain unclear. One example: We removed a wall and opened the kitchen up. This causes a little confusion now: a newly-extended "open" wall, now continuing into an adjacent space, still has no shelves, no mirrors, no backsplash, no trim. It's not clear what to do with it.

i'm happy with the kind of input I can get in this kitchen and other GW forums. They enable validation. They allow one to express doubt too. Of course, every forum could be used for these purposes but what comes back in GW forums is balanced not biased. In other forums I have found the moderators controlley and thoughtpolicey. Terrylove.com forums are good too.

Yes! its exactly as i pictured it! And mostly it "feels" like i wanted it to feel. It's a white kitchen with dark accents and even though my picture in my head was pretty clear, there were still doubts that certain things would work once done and together, but i LOVE it! still, everyday i gush to DH about how much i love being in our new digs!

I beg all of you who are answering to post a picture or a link so we can see the fantastic kitchens you are talking about!

There have been requests for photos and so far, not too many, so I'll throw mine in.

Vision points... What I was 'after':

- Functional goals: Room for our whole family of 10 to hang out and work together without getting in each other's way...Work Zones and multiple work spaces. A separate room so kitchen mess, noise, etc. is confined and not experienced from other rooms.

- A 'baker's kitchen'. One that looks like you should smell bread baking in the oven and see pies cooling on the counter. This is what I fell in love with in looking at white kitchens, while all the time knowing white kitchens weren't for me. I had to figure out what else it was that was drawing me.

- One my kids would think was cool and my grandma's would've loved, too... A good mix of contemporary lines, well-performing appliances, all while feeling welcoming and homey. Barefoot appropriate. Where the kids and friends, and eventually grandkids, want to hang out and bake.

- A little bit of the outside in. I wanted to be able to sit at my kitchen table and feel relaxed... Like the feeling of sitting on the sun-warmed and sun-bleached rocks along a river...with the feeling of a sunny day in the trees. (The stone behind the stove was supposed to represent the feel of those sun-bleached rocks, so that's why it was a disappointment for them to be more varied with some darker shades.)

- I also needed to have a surprise of boldness and artistic flair. That's where the stronger color comes in along one side, and the variation in materials and, particularly, backsplash. Lascatx helped me be brave enough to show this side of myself in an otherwise fairly traditional, farmy type kitchen that was designed to suit our 2007 version of an American Foursquare home.

You can see I asked a lot of it! LOL. And it delivers, pretty well for us. After 3 1/2 years it's still a bit of a work in progress. Island needs to be finished after I redesigned it to replace doored cabinets with drawers, need a new drawer front under the newest oven, and the upper trim needs to be done.

Looking forward to seeing everyone else's 'hits.' :-D

Here is a link that might be useful: More kitchen pics

PICTURES PLEASE~~~ I know these must be beautiful kitchens, so please show them off~~~

After almost 23 years of planning, only the last one seriously, A Definite Hit!!.
We knew the kitchen had to go when we moved in but other things took precedence.
Finally in 2009 we refi-ed the mortgage, replaced the roof and the windows, and gutted the kitchen.
Give or take 2 minor things, it came out just as we thought it would and we love it.
Here's a before shot. Pay particular attention to the lighting.

The new design is 1000% more functional and 5000% better looking.

I'm attaching a link to the before & after kitchen slideshow.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen Slideshow