I've seen some 2 toned kitchen pics on Houzz, have you tried looking at those for inspiration? I don't have the eye to help you, sorry!

If you wished you had gone lighter for the uppers, sounds like this is your chance. Will they be site painted? If so, then just do some sample boards in some options lighter than your current cabinets.

Personally, I would keep the uppers the same door style as the lowers because I prefer that look. But I think they can be mixed successfully. Maybe see if you can find some inspiration pictures of mixing the styles? Slab would be easier to keep clean. Do I remember that you have an older home? Will slab fronts suit the house in your opinion?

I wouldn't mix door styles either, but I would paint the upper the whitest white that would still coordinate with the granite and your woodwork in the house.

I agree with the others, I would not mix colors and door styles, it will be very difficult to pull off and you run the risk of it screaming DIY. I'm not a huge fan of bright white cabinets, I find that a softer white is much more pleasing to the eye. And since you are keeping the charcoal base cabinets, I would lean towards blue/gray rather than yellow or pink undertones.

As others have said, I would keep the same cabinet style, especially if you're going to have two different colors.

Daisy- Honestly, I'd like to get the range out of that corner. Can you post a plan of your kitchen? And if this is a whole house remodel...do you want to take down any walls? Open up the kitchen to any other spaces?

If you're going to possibly change the layout...depending on your budget, I would be looking at some new ideas. Now is your chance to get a kitchen you're going to love for the next several years :)

So yes to lighter uppers, but no to slab doors. I will search for pics. i have a bunch saved on pinterest that are 2 toned but I can't remember door style so I'll go have a look.

Lavender, having the stove in the corner is a negative, but I've yet to come up with an alternate. We are saying no to tearing down walls to preserve the character. I'll draw a floor plan and post it. I'd love input. The only issue is that the granite isn't covered by the insurance.

I am a bit jaded because last time we did the kitchen I hired 2 different designers to help plan the space and neither of them came up with a workable plan. One wanted a cooktop on a tiny island in the middle of the kitchen (I had two kids under 5 at the time - not workable) the other thought we should keep it where it was and not put in a back door (it had been in a niche beside the fridge where the back door is now).

Off to draw a plan.

Kitchen is 11x11 and I've tried to make the drawing roughly to scale.

Fridge, pantry and cab across from them are recessed/built in.

Please excuse the rough drawing and bad phone pic.

Can you add dimensions? How long is the sink/range wall? Do you have room to move dishwasher to the other side? Are the fridge and pantry recessed? As is the cabinet across from them?

What are the dimensions of each wall? How big is the island? How wide are the walkways around the island? How big is the window? Doors?

What are the rooms on each side of the kitchen? Would you consider a pass through or half wall, if you don't want to open the rooms entirely?

It might be a good idea to start a new thread and if you can't draw and scan on graph paper...at least have all the measurements and someone may help you with their computer program. I don't have that kind of software, but others do :)

Daisy, with all you have going on in that size kitchen ---doors, openings, windows, etc. ---I would opt for a single color and style of cabinet throughout. I like different colors and even styles for uppers and lowers, but only in a very spacious kitchen laid out a bit differently than yours looks to be.

If you go with all charcoal shaker doors (lovely!) I would definitely use a white quartzite counter, maybe with a little bit of sparkle, and stainless appliances.

Thanks kswl, I am thinking I will stick with the same door style, but keep the two tone cab colour and brighten it up. I know there is already a lot going on, but somehow those 2 colours really work in the space. I know it's not just my weird eye that likes it either because (much to my chagrin) two of my neighbours copied it when they redid their kitchens (I try to remember that imitation is flattery, but sometimes it really bugs me. I've gotten better at being coy when someone asks about what paint colour I used or where I got my tile. It sounds mean, but it really takes away from my enjoyment of my space if someone across the street has the exact same everything. I used to be thrilled to share what I knew or where I had bought something, but one neighbour actually redid her recently redone bathroom to match mine. It kind of gave me the creeps - sorry this is a whole nuther post to be discussed in conversation forum).

After reading some recent posts about cab and trim colour and looking at my pics objectively, I can see that the cabs and trim colour do need to match and that would help tone down the clutter of what's going on. Also, I may replace the wall cab I lovingly built that is hung above the antique cab. It is looking a little dated to my eye.

Fridge, pantry and cab across from them are recessed/built in.

I love that wall and antique lower cabinet! I think they should stay. You made that? Well done. Surely your neighbors didn't copy that, too. They give your kitchen so much character.

If you cook like most of us, you probably spend most of your time prepping instead of right at the sink. I would move the DW to the far right and put sink next to it. This should give you room to move the range out from the corner.

To my eye, the visual clutter is the OTR micro. Could you go with an invisible hood inside a cabinet? I think of you did that, it would make a big difference. I would also have a bit less uppers on that window wall ending them maybe 6" or so from the window to give the window breathing room. You could do an undercounter micro.

Actually, if you have enough storage to get by without uppers, a nice hood and open wall would look great.

I have to agree that if you do uppers, the two tone colors would be fine but the different door style on uppers might be a bit much in your kitchen. Maybe cut a rough slab door or two from thin plywood, paint and hang them. Seems easy enough with your skills. That should give you a rough visual to see if the idea would work.

Is that a table or an island? If it's an island, I'd move the sink and DW to the island, move the oven just a little closer to the window. I'd add an under counter microwave near the oven. That will give you a nice area to prep without changing the layout too much.

cpartist, it's more of a table (I built it to fit the space. It's table height and moveable but has a bookshelf built into the front of it). I don't think we can do a real island - just not enough room. What we have works because we can move it out of the way of the doorways when necessary. But I'm going to mention it to the designer. Maybe we could put a permanent island with the dishwasher across from the sink (or is that a no-no). I'm not sure if I'd like the sink anywhere other than under a window - but maybe I could be convinced. I'd have to lose the free standing antique cab, but that wouldn't be the end of the world.

Funkycamper, yes! I am planning on getting rid of the OTR. If we did a permanent island a micro could go in there. I love the look of what you are suggesting with fewer uppers, but we have so little storage space, it's just not feasible.

Love all these ideas. It is really making me think outside my self-imposed box.

While I LOVE your antique cabinets, if removing them gives you the space for an island with proper aisle widths, do it.

The only issue I'm aware of with a DW across the aisle from the sink is dripping on the floor. So the type of flooring you are using may be a consideration. If someone doesn't wipe up any large drips, will it cause spotting on your floor? Or make it slippery so someone would slip? Maybe a nice throw-rug in that area would solve that problem? Just stuff to consider. If there are other problems with that arrangement, hopefully someone pipes in.

You may find that with drawers on a all or most of the lowers, you gain enough storage that you don't need all those uppers. Drawers in an island may especially make that difference. We just found that out for ourselves in our slow-going, DIY remodel. We added two 24" drawer units. All the contents for 48" of uppers fit into one of the 24" drawer units. Yes, ALL, with space left over. So we had an entire drawer stack empty until we did some other re-arranging of things (emptied some things from my blind corner, Yay!). Drawers hold so much more stuff. It was rather shocking to me how much more the drawers held. And more convenient to access, too.

Because of that, we decided to remove the uppers because they crowded the window and it looks so much better now. We have decided to put narrow 6" shelves there instead of those bulky-looking uppers and go with something like the photo to store some basics like flour, beans, other grains, etc., in jars for easy access, with just a few drinking glasses (as one end of the shelves is near the fridge) and decorative items.

Although we will be doing floating shelves to keep the side view uncluttered, because our window is on the long side of the L while the shelves are on the short side of the L so our side view is important. In your kitchen, I think shelves just like pictured would look awesome.

To be honest, I'm surprised I'm doing this as I haven't been much of an open shelves fan in kitchens but I think as long as there is uniformity in what you put on them and they are kept relatively uncluttered, it is a good, workable solution.

So, yeah, add a real island with drawers and I'm sure you'll find you can eliminate or minimize whatever upper cabinets you really need.

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