I have saved inspiration photos from books, magazines, and websites of all sorts, but not sure it's OK to post them here, because of copyright issues. Have you seen the Finished Kitchens Blog to see all the kitchens forum people have created? They are a great source of inspiration...and the result of what others have used as inspiration.

Here is a link that might be useful: finished kitchens blog

Hi autumngal,

I'm doing a Victorian style kitchen too. I have tons of inspiration pics, so I'm linking you to my Photobucket album. If you want to know where any of them came from, let me know.

HTH,

Erika

Here is a link that might be useful: My Inspiration Pics

Thanks rhome410 (love your kitchen, BTW!), I actually have been super inspired on the Finished Kitchens blog. It's definitly a great resource. I hadn't thought about copyright issues, which I definitly should have. There are so many websites and great books and magazines that I don't really know about and I thought I'd just see if anyone had some good suggestions.

Erika- WOW! Thank you so much! Your inspiration photos are so helpful. I love the way your kitchen is shaping up too- thanks for responding!

Before we move, I'm just trying to figure out as much as I can so that I don't have to live too long with circa 1965 cabs and appliances.

Thanks! Ginnie

Best wishes, Ginnie. (and thanks for the kitchen compliments!) In our last house we remodeled a 1963 kitchen...Outdated, damaged, and grossly dirty (cat urine in the cooktop?, petrified gunk in the pullout cutting boards and cabinet drawers, and broken glass in the wall oven...no dishwasher, of course.) But the house was 1963, too, so no real character to work off of or shoot for. Not as much fun as yours!

Thanks rhome! I'm cautiously excited (very excited about end result and planning, not so excited about the actual process, I'm thinking it will be less pleasent than selling/moving which has been far from fun as of yet). Wow the 1963 kitchen sounds like a nightmare- sounds like if you can reno that, you can reno just about anything....

Using the house as part of the inspiration is so much fun. When we are finally in the new house, I'll post photos of the kitchen- hopefully it won't give you nightmares of 60's cooktops and cabinet drawers. Thanks again!

Erika, thanks for sharing your pictures. Many of yours are the same ones I have. I love looking at them!

Erika, once again you are inspiring us! Great pics and you have 2 of my fav GW kitchens in there, mamadadapaige and stiles.

I don't have any of my inspiration photos, but I looked at Old House interiors for a lot of ideas (your library may have copies) My house was an 1894 Queen Anne cottage which we wanted to have a kitchen that fit with the house. If you look at my finished kitchen the link will take you to photos of alot of the rest of the house too.

Here is a link that might be useful: mfrog's kitchen

Erikanh- wow great file- I have seen so many of the same pics that I just love- you are so organized to keep them all in one spot. Would love to know what counter top you ended up choosing? Thanks again for sharing

Hi chaimama,

Countertops on island and around main sink will be white marble. Countertops around cooktop will be stainless steel and there will be a maple top on dish hutch stained same color as island (russet).

Ginnie, Mary & kelleg: You're welcome! =)

My husband said "NO" to this:
{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

Yes those walls and the ceiling are fur! It was soooo cool (and amazingly tacky but I just found it in my inspiration photo's for some reason LOL This was in a house we were considering buying in MN).

So I had to settle for this:

And I showed the pictures was because my real inspiration was our view out the kitchen windows in the fall (this is a winter shot). It's all orange and bronze and yellow and red...and I wanted to capture the warmth of that season in my kitchen.

This is one of the pictures that we are trying to capture the "ambience" of...

Hi igloo...I had asked on another thread where your rangehood was showing,
how high are your ceilings? and what are your hood dimensions?
if you please and thank you...your kitchen looks wonderful and your view is certainly inspiring!
vic

mfrog, I actually have your kitchen bookmarked- I love it and your house! We plan on using (or reusing rather) as much as we can for the cabinets. We have two historical salvage places nearby and plan to utilize them as much as possible. I believe you did something similar? I also love the idea of a flour bin. How does it work?

igloochic your kitchen is stunning. I had admired it before, but had never seen the view- wow! What a fabulous inspiration to work from, although not nearly as fuzzy as the leopard. I love the idea of including even the most extreme ideas into an inspiration though, I bet you have some neat ideas from the leopard, even though your kitchen seems far from it.

sailormann- I had never thought of using a piece of art to inspire either. I am an artist that teaches art history/ art classes to kids and am so happy that you posted that here because now that you mention it I don't think I'll be completly happy without art taking some sort of roll in every part of my house.

Thanks again everyone!

autumngal;
Yes we used all salvage cabinets except for the sink cabinet & the one beside the stove. As for the flour bin, it looks like a cupboard door but pulls down to reveal a bin.
Good luck with your kitchen project! We had a great time doing ours, we moved onto to another one which we will be getting started on in a couple of months.

Vic I'm sorry...I must have missed that post.

Our ceilings are 8' tall, the hood is 58" wide by 27" deep. It has a vent a hood insert which we had to have remade to fit (given that vent a hood is US and the stove is French measurements. I'm going to have to measure the height for you if you want specifics, but I can do a quick calculation...it's 33" off the range, so that total is 69...so the hood is 27" high total. The trim is 3" wide and the black nordic antique granite is 9" wide.

If you actually want close measurements of the slope etc., let me know. We custom built the thing out of marine grade ply. It weighs a TON and is hung from the rafters with big chains, then of course fixed to the studs on the wall. Total cost wasn't that bad. the cost of the insert with an additional 1300 to rebuild it (ok that was a little painful LOL) and the granite is scraps left over from our bathroom renovation. I think the wood trim was about 500 but it was custom made for us and a sheet of marine grade is 80. While it adds up to more than a regular old metal hood :) (Which look great in some houses) I wanted something unique and in this size...we kept finding them costing close to ten grand for plaster and stone.