Finally our kitchen journey is finished. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions, designs and advice. Every comment was reviewed, considered and in many cases incorporated, even when the advice was not to include an element that would not serve the aesthetics or budget for our project. Much appreciated to all. I especially appreciate the time and effort of the professionals in the thread who helped without compensation. Their expertise was invaluable and gave us the econfidence to make choices that helped to push us to the finish line. I wanted to share our final pictures and some of the learnings from the process. 1. Budget is a guideline. Our guideline was 10k, a significant sum for a face lift and sufficient for a basic reface in my area, repainting cabinets, sink and countertop. It didn't allow for all of my wishlist (e.g. extending cabinets, custom rangehood, waterfall countertops, extra large sink and antique brass fittings). Those items required extra budget and some serious negotiation and shopping excursions to support. All in we spend 14K and that included extra cost fo unplanned updates (rewiring for undercabinet lighting, range vent, plumber to replace old plumbing). We also paid twice as much for our counters than we expected. $2700 grew to $5500 but still very reasonable considering our configuration. It meant that my island depth had to be reduced which still bugs me a little but ultimately works better for our floorplan. 2. Sometimes you just can't get a deal on price. I was desperate to find a backsplash that would be timelines, add texture but not break the budget. We were going to go with quartz to match the counters but that was a budget buster. We decided on subway tile but had made spanish tiles that matched out counters exactly. We found the perfect tile but it was 45% higher than our budget so we searched high and low, for weeks but never found an alternative option. We went with that option and have not regretted it for a second, it has an old world feel that works with the rest of our transitional home. 3. Somes reusing something better serves the overall project The floors in our kitchen were my biggest concern. "Lipstick on a pig" came to mind everytime we discussed, picking a cabinet colour, quartz countertops and tiles. We had to find a way to incorporate the existing flooring with a new bright kitchen. I needed to refresh our tile to a standard that would not detract from the new cabinets. This was a journey. We finally decided the biggest impact was to regrout the floor reducing the impact of the patter and lightening the floor overall. I think this labour intensive, cheap exercise ($50 in materials) was our biggest bang for our buck and the most satisfying update to our kitchen. 4. Having a plan will save you heartache and reduce regrettable spends. We poured over thousands of pictures, asked hundred of questions and discussed the project with as many experience people to have a solid picture of what we were trying to achieve. This helped us to know where to spend our dollars effectively. We researched all of the people we worked with and understood the work that would need to be done and we only hired people who understood our vision. 5. Be realistic You can't have everything, everything won't be perfect and sometimes concessions will have to be made unless you have unlimited time, resources and an army of tradesmen who can do anything you can imagine. I learned that the real fun is in the problem solving and thinking outside of the box. It took 6 1/2 months but it was more than we had hoped to achieve within our budget. Project: Update our builder kitchen, making it brighter, in line with the rest of the work we had done on the main floor and reusing as much of the original kitch as we could. 17'X 19' floorplan remained the same. It was dark, crowded outdated and just worn out from 17 years of use. The cabinet had a 10" dust collecting gap, the counters were laminate and in need of repair and we didn't have backsplash. We focused on light, bright updates that were not overtly trendy or specific to 2023 but rather aligned with the transitional design that we have been incorporating throughout the house. We also replaced the lighting to create unobstructed views within the room and out to the backyard. Perfect spot for morning coffee, chatty dinners at the end of the day or a hand of crazy eights with the kids. Is our kitchen magazine perfect? No but neither is the rest of the house but it is beginning to be perfect for us. :-)

You’ve made charming choices! The island lighting is perfect. One of my favorite moments is the curve of ther counter stools repeated on the mat for the dog bowl. You must be thrilled with the outcome. I’m looking forward to seeing the custom cabinet doors and a light without glare over the sink. Nice!! I always like to see the before and after right next to each other.

By the way, for future passerbyers, it seems like there are a few schools of thought on ideal placement of recessed lights…from electricians vs light experts/kitchen designers… I had read advice about placing lights away from the wall at 18” (design forums, rationale is it is the halfway point between face of uppers, and edge of counter, maximizing unobstructed light on counters/prep area, supplementing with undercabinet lighting), 24” (kitchen design forum feedback, placing at the edge of countertop, to light more space on your counter, including reducing shadow cast by the uppers closer to backsplash, but accepting some shadow from your body) and 30” (electrician, aesthetic and aisle lighting….this is what confused me and brought me here, do not recommend, it will cast shadows on your counters). I guess the efforts are to optimize lighting content of uppers, counters, while minimizing shadow cast by uppers and by our heads and bodies, with lights to the right and left of where you’d work. The answer is probably somewhere between 18” to 24”. Since I am lazy and I hate turning on my undercabinet lighting, and am not a serious home cook anyway, I wanted my ceiling lights to be the main daily workhorse light… they ended up at the edge of my countertop - 25”, slightly in from 26” depth countertops… My uppers will come out to 15”. it was done this morning before I saw some of your comments based on the attached diagram of lighting tips from another houzz pro user: https://www.houzz.com/magazine/how-to-properly-light-your-kitchen-counters-stsetivw-vs~117403233 I only bought a box of six cans! But I think I could have gone with Hallett & Co.’s suggestion of putting six neatly along the edges but I hadn’t thought of that! Oh well. All in all, we probably have enough lighting - since our house is small and open, we are probably ok at ~7500 lumens for a 130 sqft kitchen. Another rule of thumb I saw was to multiply the square footage by 30 or 40 foot candles to get a lumen range. For example: 100 square feet x 30 to 40 foot candles = 3000 to 4000 lumens. We will have LED tape that is 300 lumens per linear ft. (~10ft under uppers, 3000 lumen) Above the sink, I wanted a pendant but with two lights to minimize shadows, and so will have a two-light track/spotlight pointing down, about 2 x 500 lumens (1000 lumens) For each recessed can, most GU10 LEDs I have seen cap out at about 500 lumens per bulb. (6 x 500 lumens, 3000 lumens) The linear LED pendant above the peninsula is 600 lumens

I would not do the open shelves and just run the glass dor cabinets across the back wall around the window and then the lowers as you show. I assume you are planning to paint the old cabinets and if that is the case I would do anew cabinet to match the one on the other side of the range and then begin the glass door ones into the DR . That makes the DR another space visually . I see you are changing the island too that is a good idea. Any more help will need a to scale floor plan of the whole space showing the window doorways where those lead and done on graph paper . We need every measurement clearly marker the drawing posted here in jpeg format and DO NOT start another post