Lower 1/3...why? Dunno, 'cept I found it visually the most pleasing. Beautiful job BTW. I love your entire space and that gorgeous granite looks perfect with the natural cherry.

Oddly, I like them centered, and I like the knobs on the top and bottom doors where they are (at the bottom). It's a beautiful space, indeed.

wow! Such an improvement! I didn't love that stone in 1970. I did love the paneling in 1974. We put it on the lower half of the wall in the baby's room and there it stayed until sometime in the late 80s. It was the Noah's Ark wallpaper on the upper half that really made the change necessary. Child #3 was just too old for Noah's Ark wallpaper.

As far as knob placement, I prefer the centered position. It looks balanced to me, and I'll bet it will be the best for pulling the doors open - you know, ergonomically. As for moving the lower/upper knobs up/down, I'm kinda with your husband on this. I like them where they are. Having said that, I'll also say that moving them up/down would probably work just as well.

Thanks for the help and praise! We have decided to use that position for the knobs on the top and bottom doors. If they are moved closer to the edge of the door, they visually crowd the miter. We think the mitered corners look best with this spot.

So, no one picked the bottom position on the middle door? I'm leaning toward that one or the bottom third. I'm not fond of the way the top position almost lines up with the mantel. It feels like the mantel is almost in the way when reaching for it though it really isn't:

Suzannes, I always hated that stone - it looked too obviously fake to me (though others have thought it was real) and I begrudged it the ~40 square feet of room space and 10 feet of wall in a room with only two walls. Taking out the pickled redwood? paneling was a harder decision for us. We liked it and it was true to our house architecture. I'm glad we replaced it. The room has a maple floor, kitchen and FR cherry cabinets, oak table and chairs and unidentified darker wood on built in bookcase, doors and trim. Another wood surface was too much and the room feels much brighter with the paint.

The paint is Kelly Moore Alhambra Cream. I was a bit worried about the yellow undertone. We've avoided that in the past - perhaps due to our dislike of the old harvest yellow tile, but it worked best with our other colors and we are very happy with the result.

The middle position seems a little high to me ergonomically. It is slightly above my shoulder (I'm a little over 5'). That wouldn't be a major drawback as it's about the same height as the handles on the uppers in the kitchen, but the two lower heights are more comfortable for me. The three heights are about 37, 46 and 51 inches from the floor.

One of the things I've learned from working with my husband is that if things like being almost, but not quite lined up with something bothers you, it'll bother you forever. It's an excellent reason for doing something else. I've also been impressed during this reno over the number of things that I'm just a little too short for. I've been firm that normal everyday things are not going to be sized for people over 5'10". That is excellent reason #2 for moving those knobs down. I, personally, don't enjoy feeling the size of a kindergartener when it isn't necessary.

I love your surround. We're working on the fireplace as we speak. We have a lovely opening into the garage from the LR at the moment. Our indoor cat thought that was super -- until he discovered that it was pouring rain out there. We've gone around and around about the surround and just haven't found something that does it for us.

I like them at the bottom. You've got a lot going on there, visually, with the black squares and rectangles at varying heights, and I think placing the knobs at the bottom feels calmer. Enjoy your new room and that cozy efficient fireplace!

Centered. Looks nice!

I like the bottom because it allows the dark panels of the cabs to echo the television dark area. With the knobs up farther you notice them a lot.

I like the bottom set up, but think the knobs look lost on the drawers. I'd much rather see pulls on them. Their size is so small on a large flat surface that it seems out of balance. Unless you are getting wide knobs (t shape), I think a modest pull would be more aesthetically pleasing.

I like bottom or lower third. Centered places them too high for an easy open. Visually there do seem to be a lot of knobs. Have you considered making the large middle doors ones you just push in to open so there are no knobs?

I'm leaning toward the bottom. Thanks for the inputs. Florantha, we have noticed the way the black panels echo the TV (when off) and like that too.

Dianalo, I started out thinking I'd use bigger knobs, but after looking at a lot of furniture, I realized that furniture pieces often use much small knobs - a lot smaller than the hardware typical in today's kitchens (especially GW forum kitchens where big hardware has been increasing in popularity even since we did our kitchen 5 years ago). This is pretty typical. In Fine Woodworking, the knobs on just about everything were quite small. We are going for a furniture look here. We wanted wood knobs and weren't pleased with what was available retail in wood knobs and pulls - they aren't finely shaped. I guess most furniture makers make their own or have access to better ones wholesale. The knobs my DH turns have a much more refined pleasing shape IMO.

muskokasp, I've had doors with no pulls before and over 20 years or more, there can be wear around the edge where it is usually grabbed so I'd rather have pulls. The component stack middle door is opened fairly often because the DVD player is behind it. We considered making the pulls out of cherry rather than walnut so they would blend more, but we like the dark walnut contrast to the cherry. One good thing about knobs - if we decide after having these in place that it is too busy with the walnut, we could make cherry knobs to replace them. Or buy some other knob altogether - no hole spacing to worry about.

Stacy, we have had 7 stage 2 no burn days in a row. :( Last season there were only 3 in the whole season. We can burn when it is stage 1 because of the EPA phase II low emissions level. I hope this clears up soon. Oh well, we still enjoy the room.

Suzannes, in some ways, planning for our surround was fairly easy because we knew from the beginning that we wanted to use the stone from our kitchen to tie the two parts of the room together. But it still took some planning on how to use our remnants to cover the area. We are lucky that the grain is a bit swirly rather than linear because we didn't have much granite left. The top and one side came from the same piece with their long directions running parallel to each other. Our GC's fabricator did a great job of getting the seams pretty tight and cutting for a pretty good pattern match between the top piece and the sides. The other thing was that we didn't have a large enough piece for the hearth extension - we had one that was wide enough for the fireplace's safety requirements but it would have been a few inches shorter than than the surround width. That was fortuitous because it caused us to consider a black granite for that and I think it looks better with the black hearth tying into the black fireplace and grounding it than it would have with a matching stone hearth.

My vote is for the bottom too.

My vote is for the bottom. I don't know why. Just a look I prefer I guess.

Love your space though, a great improvement! I do love the granite too. And I think it's nice to be able to tie things together a bit. Great use of a remnant!

I equally like the middle or the bottom, not the bottom 1/3. Just doesn't look right to me.