remodelfla- Have you considered painting the cabinets and adding in the wood tones in somethings else, like flooring, or butcherblock counters? This is what I am doing with my IKEA kitchen. Perhaps the Scherrs idea is worth checking out though, especially if they are now pre-drilling. I am intrigued to see you design when it is completed- I love the industrial/contemporary/vintage combination that both you and lisalists describe. I have been describing my look as English/Southern/farmhouse/scullery/industrial. grlwprls- I can't wait to see your design either! I love your idea of early American gorcery store industrial. In fact, last summer when I visited a museum in the Outer Banks, I took a picture of their General Store display (I think it was supposed to represent what it would have looked like in about 1910 or so), just for the molding and beadboard! Oh, how pitiful we are, the TKO.

Thank you everyone, I am ordering the Lee valley hardware. I will look for different types of wood I can use, but I agree with lowspark, I had already thought of that and decided to line my drawer as she described, also. This thread has a lot of great ideas and information, I hope it sticks around for a while. Obviously a lot of people with similar issues. I had looked at the double decker types and like them but they just don't come with as many dividers as I want. All the dividers will keep things neat, but many allot much more space than I need for each item and so do take full advantage of the space. I really don't need a space 3" wide by 3" high, for instance, just for salad forks or dinner forks. When I measured my flatware, stacking it up only required 1 1/16" wide and 2" high for 12 forks. Service for 18 could be stacked in the same space that is 3" high. I allowed more space for wider tablespoons and teaspoons that I usually have more of. I still had half the dawer left to put other items, which pre-made organizers did not, since they used up so much more space for the flatware. Anyway, most organizers keep stuff organized but do not really maximize use of the space. So the Lee Valley made allow me to do that at a reasonable cost. Otherwise, I may still decide to go custom in the future. Its kind of like stock verses custom cabinets. Custom, if well planned and well done, gets you much better use of your space. I couldn't afford the cabinets, but it might be worth some less expensive customization of the stock cabinets to maximize what I did get. Thanks again for all your help and suggestions. Please feel free to post what you guys do in your drawers and I will let you know how mine work out. Sue

I make all my own bindings. Some are fairly wide, but I bought a little binding making cone from JoAnn's and they come in various bias binding widths. The one inch width makes an half inch bias binding when folded over and it is sooooooooooooooo easy. I love it and only wished I had done it sooner. I cut one and a half inch strips to feed through it, and it really doesn't take a whole lot of material to finish off a quilt that way. Sure you can use multiple materials. Why not? If you do and have never sewn bindings that way, and want a narrower binding, as opposed to one what looks almost like a block then when you sew the various lengths together, do it like you would when making bias tape, IOW put the new piece perpendicular to the old piece and sew across the two pieces on a diagonal. It makes for a lot less bulk and a more professional and inconspicuous finish. You can find instructions on many sewing sites on the web.

DH and I talked about a cherry kitchen in our future, but after he convinced me to completely replace our white cabinets so we could start fresh, I couldn't see that much brown. I've always been partial to white kitchens and when I went through kitchen photos, at least 80-90% of those I was drawn to were white. Sooo.... I would call our kitchen transitional I had never seen or heard of Christopher Peacock and white kitchens were not so popular, but I think the shaker and similar plainer front cabinets were, so going simpler seemed a popular choice. It was driven by hating the heavy moldings on our custom cabinets (wall trim used on cabinet doors). It made a statement, but that and the short counters meant every drip got caught on the paint and stained -- and there were lots of grooves to clean. DH is s slob in the kitchen. I had to have something very simple so the choice was desperation, not fashion. Our tile had to be patched in the reno and was done poorly, so we later replaced the floor. The dark wood was probably a popular choice then, but it fit our house. Risky -- did white marble counters in both the cooking and clean up zones before it was making every magazine cover. I am not a granite person, didn't like my mom's Corian and the cool recycled glass was uber expensive and didn't really go with our house. I saw a slab of marble with squiggles that reminded me of the stray marks on old ink drawings and thought of Da Vinci (my boys and I were into him) and I had to have it. End of story. Other not so safe choices -- I did three cabinet finishes (wall of tall blue storage surrounding my fridge and knotty cherry island and hutch in the breakfast room, did a 3 tile combo (from 2 different sources) for the inset in my backsplash, and mixed metal finishes on hardware, lighting and faucets. All of the above plus the fact that the layout was designed by me to maximize every inch of possible function for the way we wanted it to work and adding fridge drawers to our hutch made it right for us. I designed it to make me happy and with no consideration for resale or what others would think. My favorite design element -- the different cabinet finishes -- the wall of blue as a backdrop plus the knotty cherry -- and the custom leaded glass in the uppers of the hutch. But my favorite thing is how it functions. DH even said out loud last night (8 years later) how he loves the way we designed the kitchen. It just works for us. I'd say the marble and the three cabinet finishes were a bit of a ledge, maybe mixing metals -- no regrets. We didn't name our kitchen, but we had in mind a couple of things -- an old bakery or ice cream parlor and kind of the gentrified plantation/ranch style of the rest of our home. I also kept saying I wanted a workhorse, not a showplace. It needed to be almost understated and yet, at the same time, go big or go home. Probably doesn't make any sense, but no sissy stuff here. The sparkly bridge faucet, chandelier over the island -- beautiful, but didn't fit here.