That kitchen is beautiful...this photograph could've been taken years ago and still it looks as good today. You say you have no design know how but this kitchen has a very classic look that will last forever. Now how does this "look" go with the rest of your home? I looked at your other thread and some of your other pictures were more rustic. Not to say they weren't pretty too!

Or you can be thinking like me.....who cares what the rest of the house looks like! We'll just redo them all!!!!

weezel: It is a beautiful kitchen, isn't it? My 90s era home has no distinctive features that I need to (or want to) match so I am treating this kitchen like a blank slate. :) Here's another of my threads where I got help to work that all out http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3602467/which-kitchen-style-for-my-90s-era-house.

If I had the budget, this would be a full house reno! So it will start with the kitchen.

You're right... a lot of my other dream kitchens are much more rustic. My heart is still with the rustic/farmhouse style. But I want to do it very carefully so it doesn't go too far out of my husband's comfort zone.

So... considering that this is a blank slate, how do I go about this? How do I start??

all about budget...natural and rustic species will drive pricepoints higher. Where can you compromise and get say stock cabinets in dark stained alder for the perimeter.....and your rustic maple or lyptus for other run ..or island?? Flooring can be priced right away......appliance package can be calculated-the hood shown , or similar is an expense....Have an ideal vision with the materials you want and love...but figure out where you can pare it back and keep the look....once you get pricing.....if it's a galley setup it won't be hard to pick your cabinet types and locations, so I'd work on sourcing the wood top....and beautiful floor...find maybe a local cabinet guy to build a section in rustic species. It's homework with a spreadsheet in front of you really.

herbflavor: I've got a decent budget for the kitchen reno, just don't have any left to do the rest of the house! ;) We accounted for higher end custom cabinets in our budget so I'd like to plan first for a dream kitchen then, like you suggested, I'll pick and choose what to scale back on (if needed) to fit the budget.

Budget: I get. Design: not so much! I've got a steep learning curve ahead of me.

Some of the wonderings floating in my head right now:

Do I start by choosing the cabinets first?

I know we like the look of light-coloured, marble-like quartz countertops. We'll also likely get the same material on the wall for the backsplash. Would it look strange to put white cabinets with a light quartz counter on one side of the kitchen then wood cabinets with a butcher block counter the other?

I know I want wood-look tiles for flooring but I haven't decided on the colour yet. Should the flooring match the wood on the cabinets or contrast it?

How do I do contrast? What does that mean exactly? Is it as simple as light vs dark or cool vs warm?

no, it's not simple...but it's not hard either. One whole wall of white,with painted cabinets and light quartz counter AND backsplash .....with all wood on other side is playing up contrast. You'd want, say, stained wood all lowers and light to medium quartz then the white wall cabs..... it melds together that way. Floors never need to match..don't worry about floor...they are better a tone or 2 different. I guess you should start at a bigbox store..since it's a galley they'll do a printout with a basic selection you can work off. Try Schulers at Lowes-pick a stained wood and go from there. Emphasize drawers on your base areas and some nice double doored uppers 27-36 in wide. You can go back and change to rollout pantries/etc later. You don't have to do all this yourself. With a good budget you can also go to a kitchen design showroom and find a designer you like....what you might do is just browse in the showroom a few times and you might connect with someone....then start to sit down with the individual. They like any sketch or picture you have. This is all just a personal preference how you get your process going....in addition, you might utilize some casual visits to a showroom and ask about cabinet construction-there is a lot to learn if you haven't done that bit yet. Usually a good designer will explain and show you options-they should be extremely well versed in this stuff.

herbflavor: We met with a kitchen designer at Home Depot at the very beginning of our planning. I hadn't thought to meet with another cabinet manufacturer. Fantastic idea!!

Thanks so much for the tips on contrast, etc too. It is helping a lot. I've been doing some reading tonight and found one article that helped get me closer to understanding what contrast is all about: http://designinghome.blogspot.ca/2012/03/thoughts-on-mixing-wood-tones.html?m=1. 

Lots more to learn. I'll keep reading, collecting pictures and will try to book an appointment with a kitchen designer this week... and hope to get more tips from other talented Houzzers too!

In a galley, you might want to think about doing the lowers in the natural wood and the uppers white. Another idea is to do the cabs and/or box around the fridge another colour. Oops, just read that you don't want the upper/lower difference. I wonder if you did upper/lower two tone and then had it broken up in the middle with a section of all one colour. You could do this around a focal point like the range or sink.

We have a smaller kitchen (11x11) and did the lowers stained black and the uppers white. We have an island that is white and the counter is unstained maple.

Have you looked at the kitchens with quarter sawn oak? There are some lovely ones out there mixed with white cabinetry that have a beautiful rustic feel.

daisychain01: I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I can't fully get on board with the uppers/lowers two-tone look. It would make it so much easier if I just went along with it though! ;)

You might have something there... to break it up with at a natural break like at the sink, range or fridge.

Yes, I have seen the quarter sawn oak cabinets and I agree that they have a nice rustic look to them! That is another wood I will ask to get pricing for. I currently have oak cabinets, and while I hate the orangey colour they've aged to, I really like how strong and durable they are.

I love your inspiration photo. I know you don't like the 2 tone look but I thought I would post this photo. I love this kitchen - it's someone else's inspiration photo that I saved for when I redo my kitchen in 20 years :)

I think you'd probably get better help if you post your final layout, so people can more easily identify sections of cabinets/counters that lend themselves to being in a contrasting material (wood). Your hutch probably makes the most sense to be wood, but it is hard to say without a layout.

Just in case it changes anything and makes your life easier, I have a two-tone kitchen (black on the bottom, white on top) and what got me on board with that look was bringing some white into the bottom and some black into the top as well. I thought the two parts looked too disparate otherwise.

In our case, some of our white upper cabinets will have leaded glass doors with black caming that relates to the black lowers. And all the cabinets have glass knobs on them. On the base cabinets, the glass knobs catch the light and look almost white against the black base cabinets, which relates the lower cabinets to the white uppers.

Together, those details make the kitchen look more cohesive to me, and it was only then that I started liking the two-tone look.

You might try to find pictures of wood on the bottom, white on top kitchens that also have, for example, a wood hood. That would be one way you could mix in wood to the white upper half of your kitchen. Or perhaps wood floating shelves mixed in with the white uppers. And maybe a floor runner with white details to bring the white into the lower elements as well. Or the white counter you had in mind.

ETA:

Here are some pictures of kitchens with either the base cabinet color repeated somewhere up top or with interesting/varied brown or wood details up top that might help tie together wood bases with white uppers in your kitchen:

If I were you, I would start with choosing some wood species/colors/styles that you love, and go from there. I did a kitchen 10 years ago with mixed natural cherry and white cabinets. I picked the cherry first, then the soft white for the cabinets, then the flooring so it wouldn't blend to closely with the cherry.

Lily Spider: That is a lovely kitchen and I especially like the wood and the hardware on the bottom. The way they did the white on top makes it blend in with the walls, which helps minimize that very "top vs bottom" look that I don't like. I love the little touches of farmhouse in the kitchen too - gives it such a cozy, homey feel. This also looks and feels like a kitchen that's actually lived in. I'm saving these in my inspiration file. :)

namarie: You're right that I tend to go away from the modern look but I LOVE how you did the two tone with your cabinets! The white gong all the way up on either side of the range makes sense and doesn't look forced because you've got the light countertop linking it all. I also really like the balance and symmetry of your layout. Would you mind sharing more photos showing your kitchen from different points of view? I'd like to see the bottom half of the island, and how the space around the fridge looks.

Jillius: Hello again! ;) You hit the nail on the head - THAT'S why I can't get on board with uppers vs lowers two-tone kitchens... like you, I don't want the uppers and lowers to look too disparate. Thanks SO MUCH for sharing how you made it work in your kitchen, and all your suggestions. They all help to make design more concrete and easy to understand for a non-designer like me. Great idea to post my layout - will do it next.

Kim: I'll take your advice and start with choosing the wood! That makes a lot of sense. I love the look of the cherry on your base cabinets - what a lovely shine they have to them in the sunlight. Thanks so much for sharing!

Below are some photos of what my new kitchen layout will be.

• The cabinets and counter tops shown were chosen as placeholders for layout purposes.

• We will be getting drawers on all the base cabinets but haven't mapped out where they'll all go yet.

• I'd like glass doors on at least some of the wall cabinets but not sure where to put them, how many, or what style of glass.

• I'm considering putting a tall cabinet on the opposite end of the run from the fridge, to balance that side.

• I'd like a built-in hutch somewhere but haven't decided where yet.

  We like the look of light-coloured, marble-like quartz counters and butcher block counters. I definitely don't want butcher block counters around the sink and range - I'm just too clumsy and lazy to care for the wood around so much moisture and heat! I'm considering getting butcher block along the other side of the kitchen... but worry that two different counter top materials will look awful.

• Also, note that the two windows at the back are actually bay windows. For the bay window in the kitchen, we pian to install the countertop with an overhang to make it a small breakfast nook.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!

Ms K's Kitchen Reno · More Info

Ms K's Kitchen Reno · More Info

Ms K's Kitchen Reno · More Info

Ms K's Kitchen Reno · More Info

BTW, in case anyone's wondering: we settled on the galley layout vs open concept because the walls between the kitchen and dining room are load bearing (too costly and time consuming to remove). We also couldn't figure out an open concept layout that would give us a kitchen that functions as nicely as the galley does.

:) Happy to help! I am very, very far from a designer, but what I just explained is a variation on perhaps the only interior design rule I've absorbed. Namely, if you repeat an element a couple times around a room, it'll look like a deliberate, well-integrated design choice. So when something doesn't look as if it belongs or seems anomalous, I just repeat it two or three times elsewhere in the room, and that almost always works. It's magical!

With regard to your layout, it seems quite functional, but for someone who loves windows the way you do, have you considered adding more windows to the sink wall? Is the view in that direction nice? Based on your prior posts, it seems as if more windows would give you more joy than almost anything else you could add to the space, particularly if they were windows with the kind of style/character you are looking to create in your home.

Thanks Ms K! Here are a few more shots of the kitchen. The refrigerator surround and over cabinet isn't in yet and we just moved in a couple of weeks ago so there are a few bins still to unpack but you get the idea. Also, the wood isn't as dark as it appears on my iPhone.

namarie, are those IKEA cabinets? may I ask what white cabinet front that is? Thank you.

No, they are from a company our builder worked with called Eurocraft. The white are painted maple and the lowers are cherry in a sienna finish.

Jillius: I finally had time to get back on this thread to catch up on replies. I notice that you edited one of your replies and added some fantastic inspiration photos. THANKS! Those kitchens do have some great ideas that I am churning around in my head. :) I love your "magical" design rule - since I read that, I've been noticing it in pretty much every one of my inspiration photos. It's such an easy trick but SO effective.

Yes, you know I LOVE windows! That's actually what made me choose the galley layout. It isn't apparent from my drawings, but here's how I'll be making the windows and natural light the big feature in this kitchen:

The back of my house (where the kitchen is) faces west and the front faces east, so this galley layout will allow us to bring light from the front to the back of the house, and vice versa, as the sun moves throughout the day. We'll get the lovely morning sun from our living room beaming through into the kitchen, and the warm afternoon sun beaming through the kitchen into the living room. It's actually that new hole in the wall that I'm most excited about! So this kitchen will have my love for windows, views of the outdoors, and natural light covered. ;)

namarie: Sorry for the very belated thank you - thank you! I really appreciate seeing the different angles of your kitchen. I keep gazing at your photos, gleaning ideas for how to make that two-tone coordination work in my kitchen. I'm especially inspired by the cabinets around your range... and how the island balances it so well too... no, ALL of it just works so nicely! It's a gorgeous kitchen.

It took me all night to draw this! It isn't perfect and I didn't have time to fiddle with the small details like the hardware but it's enough to give me a rough idea. This is my interpretation of how my inspiration kitchen could look in my own kitchen:

I'd love to hear your feedback on this design. Is the three-tone look too busy? Does it lack cohesiveness? Please be completely honest!

What stands out to me is all the different finishes on the appliances - black, white & stainless? I find that jarring. I'm not keen on 3 different cabinet colors either - I'd have to see a picture of all 3 together in 'real life'.

The problem is you have the same color cabinets all on one side and the other color on the opposite side. That will make it look like two different kitchens stuck together. What Jillius was trying to explain is that if you have brown cabinets on one side, you must repeat them on the opposite side too and visa versa.

Your title reminded me of this recent Domaine article...http://www.mydomaine.com/warm-wood-kitchen-trend/

I'm wondering if it would be more balanced if you have white uppers, wood lowers on the sink/range side and white fridge area and white high cabinet flanking wood base and uppers on the other side:

Are you going to do the window/door trims in wood to match the cabinets, or white, or something else? That would make a difference.

Personally, I like what Benjesbride did above. I wonder if the upper cabinets on the left would tie in better if they were white boxes with wood doors or vice-versa? Since Ms K doesn't like colors split simply between uppers and lowers.

Oops. I missed that detail about not liking wood on bases and white on uppers.

Thanks everyone! I agree with all that you pointed out. Some of the issues you mentioned were due to my inexperience with using the kitchen design program! I've fiddled around some more and revised the drawings:

I will be keeping my white fridge and DW but will be getting a new SS gas range and hood. I didn't know how to make the fridge white when I did the drawing last night so that explains why the appliances were so multi-coloured! The new drawings are more accurate (range will have much more SS and much less black).

funkycamper: thanks so much for following me on both of my active threads! I really appreciate the support. I would LOVE to get matching window/door trims AND a new matching back door! If the budget allows, I will be doing some or all of those. My windows are white aluminum - is white trim the only way to go with that? I'd love wood trim but I don't think it would look good with the white window frames (is that what you call that part of the window??) That's a creative idea - to have the boxes and doors different colours. My drawings have white cab boxes and wood doors. I kind of like it. Will have to stare at it some more...

benjesbride: NP! This is such a long thread - of course you wouldn't have seen that detail. ;) Yes, funkycamper is right - I don't like splitting the colours between uppers and lowers. They just don't look cohesive to me in that way. So I did the two tall white cabs on the fridge side. I tried to mimic the symmetry that namarie had going on the wall she had her range on. I really liked how she got the two tones to work so nicely there.

Oh forgot to share this with you llucy: This is the inspiration photo that inspired me to try incorporating 3 colours:

Urban Homestead · More Info

Clearly, it's a very difficult look to pull off!!

My thoughts in no particular order:

1) I like what benjesbride suggested here:

For these reasons:

• I like that you have blocks of white and wood on BOTH sides of the aisle, which looks more cohesive to me than some of the other options presented. However, the way the blocks of white and wood are arranged is different on each side, which make it interesting to me.

• I like that the white fridge is in a white cabinet (just seems to blend better), and I would suggest you make the microwave white as well -- then the focus will be on the wood cabinets set off between the white columns.

• I'd also suggest that you make the wood uppers on the fridge wall your glass cabinets and not have glass on the other wall. (Nothing against the other wall. It's just not practical to have glass everywhere, and I like it especially on the fridge wall.)

• You might play up how the wood middle on the fridge wall is already starting to look like a hutch. Add corbels or other hutch detailing, give it a contrasting counter, etc. This would be an excellent place to deploy your butcher block.

• Try fiddling with this general idea (white uppers, wood lowers on the left, and white tall cabinets with wood in the middle on the right), but add a few wood elements to the upper section on left. Maybe swap the stainless hood for a wood hood or perhaps add in a wood shelf or two somewhere. Or if a wood window could go in, that'd be perfect.

2) I don't like the idea of three tones on the cabinets (I'd stick with white and one shade of wood), but I like the idea of having butcher block on the fridge wall counter, which would give you a third tone. Perhaps whatever wood you add to the upper half of on the sink wall (hood detail, shelves, window, etc.) could match the tone of the butcher block counter on the other side.

3) The window above the sink looks crowded. You might reduce the size of its flanking cabinets to allow 4" (ish) of breathing room on either side.

4) I'm afraid I think the overhang in front of the bay window looks weird. Especially considering that your taste runs rustic/traditional, that counter detail almost seems too modern? A small bistro table in front of the bay would serve the same purpose, but look less out of place.

5) I'm not one to bother about symmetry, but I keep wanting to add one more upper cabinet to the right of the range because you're SO CLOSE to symmetrical uppers on that wall. My mind either wants it to actually be symmetrical or be way less close to symmetrical. Something about the nearly there is not sitting right. When this kitchen is built in real life, will you ever be able to stand back far enough to see that whole wall in one view? If not, ignore this comment.

Ms K! Thank you for posting. I am carefully monitoring this thread since it seems like you and I are trying to achieve the same color scheme :)

Thanks for all the suggestions Jillius! I incorporated a lot of your great ideas into some new sets of drawings. The IKEA kitchen planner is limited in what I can add to it. So I couldn't do things like add the corbels, make the microwave white, or add open shelving. >:(

I also played around with different ways to mix the white and wood. I settled on two different designs:

#1 MOSTLY WOOD CABINETS

I put all wood cabinets on the sink wall and put a wood "hutch" on the fridge wall. I will defintely be adding corbels and furniture toe kicks to make it look even more like a hutch - love that idea Jillius! (BTW all of the wood cabinets have the same wood but for some reason the drawings shade one side darker than the other).

West wall

South wall

East wall

North wall

#2 HALF WOOD/HALF WHITE CABINETS

I thought, because a galley is already divided down the middle, maybe it wouldn't look too forced or odd to have each side a different colour?? I made the fridge wall all white and left the sink wall all wood. I added a butcher block counter to the white side in an attempt to tie it all together. If I have the budget, I'd love to have a local woodworker create a "live edge" salvaged wood counter there instead of a butcher block.

West wall

South wall

North wall

Any thoughts, suggestions? Which design do you like better?

If I read this right, #2 is pretty much what we are doing. The cabinets will be installed March 7th, and then, depending on if I like it or not, I will post some pictures. We have an open galley kitchen. The run with the fridge, stove and one of the pantries, will have designer white uppers and lowers. The other side, the open peninsula side, will be walnut veneer. Both will have Caesarstone concrete 3CM countertops.

What I like, or hope I will like, is that the walnut will act as a separator from the kitchen to the family room.

I like plan ONE......I would purposely change the wood in the middle of fridge run from what you have on sink run........a change in species...or tonal shift in stain. the sink run is your anchor area....go outside or beyond that to something slightly different or special, TO YOUR EYE for the middle of fridge run. Say you had maple on sink run...go ahead and do knotty cherry on opposite side....or maple again on lower drawer cabinets but slightly darker stain, and painted frames in a different color for glass doors above it.

sf_treat: I'd love to see photos when it's done!! If you don't mind sharing, that is!

herbflavor: Thanks for "voting" and I will do up a drawing with your suggestion.

I'm also mixing white and wood in a unique way. This isn't exactly what I'm doing, but here are a few pictures I've found on Houzz.

Modern Urban Kitchen Renovation · More Info

2011 HHL Bathrooms · More Info

Vintage Kitchen with Modern Sensibilities · More Info

arialvetica: It's been so hard for me to find photos with a mix of wood and white. Thanks so much for sharing those! I really like aspects of all of them. I really want to somehow do a pop of colour like in the first and last one but I don't know if I'll be brave enough to! I might just put it in something less permanent like a small movable island or something like that!

One advantage to doing the pop-of-color in a cabinet door...if you hate it you can always replace it! I'm really excited to see what you end up doing, since it does take a certain bravery to go your own way..

My kitchen designer is having heart-palpitations over the colors I made him put into our design. My builder says that this kitchen designer is always nervous when someone does anything beyond honeyed oak LOL. He's great with the technical/functional layout, but does not have an artist's eye. :)

Saw this and thought of your kitchen. Not the style, really. But the way they mixed colors in a galley kitchen.

Photo from http://jennaburger.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Kitchen_Galley_Styl · More Info

.

Here are some more. Some lovely, some meh. :)

Frieda · More Info

Captiva-Kitchen · More Info

Kitchens · More Info

Canterbury, MI · More Info

Traditional Kitchen with Contrasting Island and Hood · More Info

Wendy: that's certainly an even harder combo to find: a galley kitchen with a unique painted/wood cabinet mix! Thanks so much for thinking of me and sharing it! :)

arialvetica: you rock! Wow did you find lots of great inspiration photos! I especially like that kitchen by Tineke Trigg. I've saved all the photos I could find of that kitchen and the adjoining dining room.

I still haven't 100% confirmed what the final design will be but I do really want to bring in some bold colour somewhere! I love that comment your builder made about your KD. Ha ha...

My kitchen is white and wood if you are interested in another take on it.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2694406/corgimum-finally-finished-her-kitchen?n=41

(I just now realized I'm also a Mrs K. LOL -- we will have to share our mixed-color kitchens when we're both done!)

We're building new, so it's already "started" and God only knows when it will finish. ;) Mr K is hopeful we'll move in July 1, I suspect it'll be more like Oct 1!

All done! http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/4352351/finished-kitchen-w-modern-craftsman-inspiration-pictures