I did a quick search of the Finished Kitchens Blog and found one Quakermaid and three Plain & Fancy kitchens. The closest I found to "Cucina Blu" was "Cucine Lube" (one kitchen). To find these kitchens, (1) Go to the Finished Kitchens Blog (http://finishedkitchens.blogspot.com/) (2) Click on the "FKB Categories" link (on the right navigation panel) (3) Scroll down to "Cabinets" (4) The first group of links is to kitchens by cabinet manufacturer. You will find the three I mentioned above in this list Good luck! Here is a link that might be useful: Read Me If You're New To GW Kitchens!

I can contribute some German perspective. The standard in Germany is to take your kitchen with you when you move, so most of their kitchen designs have a modular quality to them. Then there's that pervasively sleek Bauhaus influence that feels more historically "natural" in Germany, and less superimposed, than elsewhere. The Germans have a very strong tradition of functional/ergonomic kitchen design, going back to the socially-aware 1920's and efforts to improve worker housing. Read all about the famous Frankfurt Kitchen here and here. (Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky was Austria's answer to Lillian Gilbreth.) But then there's also the traditional German aesthetic of cuckoo clocks, carved wood, breakfast nooks and enormous tiled ovens. It's a class issue, as these things often are -- so you see far less of the cuckoo clocks and more of the sleek Bulthaupt in the kitchen porn mags. Germany has smaller habitat spaces than the US in general. Appliances are smaller than the US norm and the standard refrigerator is an under-counter model about the size of an American dishwasher. (This makes the perennial GW question of where to place the honkin' huge fridge irrelevant for most Germans.) Perusing the latest kitchen design mags for Germany, Austria, Switzerland (all one market), I do notice a few things of interest. --> They are not as in love with upper cabinets as Americans. And when they do have them, they tend to be the lift-open type rather than the side-hinged ones we're familiar with here. --> Germans are not afraid of color, and their combinations are not always what we see here. Check out the violet purple cabs with pumpkin accents: Or purple and black: Pistachio and gray: --> But when they do white, they do WHITE: --> Germans, like most Europeans, don't drink tap water. They haul bottled water and beverages home by the case every week, requiring kitchens to provide space for the cases: --> Tiered electric food steamers are the new appliance non plus ultra. Here from Miele: --> Small spaces lead to more innovation. It's like IKEA meets the '20's bungalow kitchen. Because they seldom use wood for cabinetry, they can do some interesting things with doors and corners: --> They're also inordinately fond of large walls of cabinets -- they prioritize storage over prep space:

Cheryl, I'd love to see your specs and drawings -- how do we do e-mail stuff here? I have "allow members to send you stuff" checked in my profile -- will this do it? I went to the North Toronto location. Anna wasn't there, so we were handed to someone else. Opinion on reserve, as we've had no correspondence with her since then. We like the Ravenna; the "pillow" effect is somehow feels contemporary and vintage-y at the same time, esp. if I can get away with no or few uppers and can incorporate some free-standing pieces to complement it. I agree that they have a great selection. And funny you should mention that about tax. It's a pet peeve of DH that prices here (he's from the UK) don't include taxes, and so you always have to ADD on to whatever you get. I'm still working within Excel ... have a couple of new layout options, but waiting to post until I got something from Aya, in case that made a difference. As it is, the design I gave to them at the weekend is different from where I am now, as I "found" a whole new block of space for the pantry in the adjacent breakfast nook. Exciting as it was, heaven only knows how the addition of that space will affect the budget. (I'm laughing, really I am!) Like many here, champagne tastes ... though I really didn't think my budget was that tricky; oh, what an education it's been! And to think you're doing it with three under-three-foot little ones!

The cabinets pictured are "textured laminate in Teak Lava". I used Bellmont 1900 cabinets to achieve a similar look. My cabinets were just under $15,000 for a 10' island (10' of cabinets on one side, 5' on the other side), 11' of uppers and lowers, refrigerator and dw panels. They're also textured laminate on the bottom, and acrylic on the top (NOT thermofoil). I'll post a picture later when I get home. Here's a picture of the island.