I love your inspiration photos, esp the last one, and your cabinetmaker is a gem : ) .

We would like to do either wood lowers and white uppers with Glacier White Corian or white lowers with some wood uppers with soapstone counters.

That sounds like a great plan. Given the light conditions, I would probably only do soapstone counters if there more more white cabs.

Is the sink wall the only exterior wall?

Isaac, it is indeed the only exterior wall. The wall behind the coffee maker houses the stairs and the wall behind the double ovens and fridge backs to the dining room. The outside walls are all accurate in the photo I’ve attached, but my penciled in lines are iffy but hopefully give an idea of the layout of the first floor.

Beckysharp, thank you so much for the kind comment about the cabinetmaker! We are in way over our heads with this and they have made the whole thing feel so easy thus far. From my understanding, they are based locally but are nationally known. They seem to do beautiful work.

ScottieMom, here are a few photos of the outside. They are some updates that need to happen (wooden fence replaced), but we love it.

I don't like the wood lowers with the white uppers. Why? Because your house is a traditional tudor from the 1920's and that look you're thinking of is 2000 teens trendy. It doesn't work with the house.

Those oak cabinets are absolutely stunning but I do agree with you that with no natural light except from the north it might be too dark. I think you'd be best doing all white on the perimeter cabinets and maybe a darker island with soapstone.

I did something similar in my kitchen. My dining area faces south but is covered by the lanai and my cooktop wall faces north. To the right faces east so like you I don't get a huge amount of light in the kitchen but with the cabinets to the ceiling and the white perimeter, it does feel bright and light in the kitchen. Even with the dark island. Something to consider?

Have you considered flipping the kitchen and dining room? I think it might make more sense and give you more light in the kitchen. A dining room doesn't need as much light since most times you're hopefully chatting with diners and mostly eating at night when it's dark.

Or does the dining room have special built in's etc?

Cpartist, I’ve been hoping/dreading that you would chime in as I have huge amounts of respect for your opinion after watching you go through your build and help other people, but I was kinda thinking that you’d ixnay the white uppers.

I really, really love the wood cabinets, which is surprising because I thought that I was in the white cabinets for life crew (though after wiping my husband’s coffee spills and my tea dribbles off our current white cabinets, I dunno). Since it’s a smallish kitchen, do you think that it would be too dark and overwhelming to do wood uppers as well as lowers if we add white elsewhere since we will have white counters? The white cabinetry that I’m thinking of would be a built-in china cabinet in the kitchen for my antique teacup collection (used daily) and the pantry built into the mud room. And maybe a hood for the gas stove?

I’m not sure that there is room for an actual island in the current kitchen, but you bring up a super interesting point about switching the kitchen with the dining room. My guess is that it might be cost prohibitive. I’m definitely going to ask about it though. I love the house’s current layout, but I am open to thinking outside the box if it works and is affordable.

I appreciate your honesty and thoughtful suggestions. I know how much you value old homes and we adore this house so much that we want to get it right.

What a lovely house!

Swapping the kitchen and dining would give you better light in a room you use more during daylight hours, and two exterior kitchen walls (for the sink and for range venting). It disrupts the traditional and functional living/dining/kitchen flow, but seems worth serious consideration.

Cpartist, I’ve been hoping/dreading that you would chime in as I have huge amounts of respect for your opinion after watching you go through your build and help other people, but I was kinda thinking that you’d ixnay the white uppers.

Thank you I think. LOL. I do love the look of darker lowers with white uppers but I just don't see it working in a period house like your beauty. Like I said, it screams 2000 teens. The cabinet styling is correct but not the overall look.

In fact those cabinets are drool worthy and I had seriously considered something similar for my own house before deciding on white perimeter cabinets and European boxes with full overlay doors. Of course though, my house is a brand new build. And the other reason I didn't in my house was because all my trim was white and being in FL, I felt I needed to keep a lighter look.

I really, really love the wood cabinets, which is surprising because I thought that I was in the white cabinets for life crew (though after wiping my husband’s coffee spills and my tea dribbles off our current white cabinets, I dunno).

They are absolutely stunning.

Since it’s a smallish kitchen, do you think that it would be too dark and overwhelming to do wood uppers as well as lowers if we add white elsewhere since we will have white counters?

I'm thinking if you keep the counters white (either real marble or a quartz marble look with a white subway tile backsplash) it could work. But you'd also need to keep any walls quite light too. Not white, but something on the lighter side. (FYI: My 1927 bungalow that was my first house had white subway tile in the kitchen that was original)

The white cabinetry that I’m thinking of would be a built-in china cabinet in the kitchen for my antique teacup collection (used daily) and the pantry built into the mud room.

Not a pure white but more of a creamy white. There was no pure white back in the day. If the china cabinet were not on the same wall as the rest of the cabinets or somehow separated in another way, I could definitely see it working.

And maybe a hood for the gas stove?

NO. LOL. What would happen is your eye would go immediately to the hood because our eye is always drawn to the lightest object in a room when other objects are darker.

I’m not sure that there is room for an actual island in the current kitchen, but you bring up a super interesting point about switching the kitchen with the dining room. My guess is that it might be cost prohibitive. I’m definitely going to ask about it though. I love the house’s current layout, but I am open to thinking outside the box if it works and is affordable.

I brought it up as an idea, BUT if there are any distinguishing architectural features in the dining room (built in buffet, wainscoting up the walls, built in bookcases, window seat, etc, I absolutely would not ruin the feel of the dining room by switching the two rooms. That would be a remuddling. Only if the dining room is mostly a box would I even consider it.

Can you post pictures of the dining room? And also how the living room works with the dining room?

What are the dimensions of the kitchen and dining room as they are now?

Is there a door that divides the kitchen from the dining room? (usually there would have been a swinging door to divide kitchen from dining room.)

Hello again. Reviving this thread after a long absence due to lots of local tornadoes, then historic flooding, more tornadoes, end of school year stuff with the kids, and then travel. Somewhere in there I’ve also worked while navigating this renovation while my husband is out of town for work. It’s been Super Fun, by which I mean not at all.

Anyway, my apologies for falling off the map. I also didn’t want to keep bumping this until I had somewhat firm plans from our cabinet maker. They have been an absolute joy to work with, especially our designer. She’s made it feel like a real partnership every step of the way.

To answer a few questions, we did look into swapping the kitchen and the dining room space, but decided against it as the windows go down too far in the dining room (and are set in brick). We also like the way that the living room flows into the dining room. I’ve included photos of that taken from the real estate listing. There was once doors into the kitchen from both the entry hallway and from the dining room. They have both been taken down (one by previous owners, one by us) because they really impeded traffic into and out of the kitchen, but they’ve been carefully saved as they are beautiful.

We ended up deciding on quartersewn white oak lower cabinets and soft white upper cabinets. I will pause for a moment so that cpartist can give me the hairy eyeball, because I know that it is a trend, but it appears to be one that we love, because we keep circling back to it. (And we are total punkers who would usually scoff at following anything that we perceived as trendy, so we are very surprised by our decision.) We’re also going with Glacier White Corian, because we’ve had it before and loved it, and because I do not have the fortitude to worry about seams and patterns matching up, etc. Seriously, I am a lover, not a fighter, and even reading posts about this stuff gets me all worked up.

I think that most of the kitchen plans will be self-explanatory, as it is a small space, but three things to note:

1. We took out the island with cooktop in the breakfast nook.

2. There is a weird little mud room just off the kitchen. It is TINY and the configuration is really bizarre, and unfortunately, it is the main entrance that we’ll use daily. The drawing of the small counter with bookshelves to the right will go in that space. The shelves will be used for the kids’ backpacks (she said with total optimism, all the while knowing that they will likely end up being used for cookbooks) and the counter space will be a good drop zone.

3. There is an angled china cabinet being built in, as I collect antique tea cups and apparently don’t know when to stop. My daughter and I use these daily. I’ve included a photo of my green hutch thing, which will also live in the kitchen. That represents about 1/10th of the teacups that I own. Anyway, normally I do not think that it would be wise for precious space to be used that way in a kitchen, but this is actually a big part of our morning, so I wanted to explain why we went there.

We’re feeling pretty great about the cabinet drawings in terms of layout/where we will put things, but I’d love any feedback if something jumps out at you. Cpartist, I hope that you know that even though I totally ignored you on the two toned cabinet thing, I really do value your opinion.

Cabinet and counter choices:

Breakfast nook with island removed, mid-floor refinishing.

View from front door looking straight into kitchen and to the mud room beyond. Living room is to the left, sunroom to the left of living room, with a peek into dining room. These are listing photos, so furniture and dried flowers will change.

Goodness. Sorry about that novel.

Here are the new appliances that we’re ordering, along with our current favorite tile options. We’re not even really getting serious about backsplash until the cabinets and counters are in. Right now we’re looking at October at the earliest for the cabinets, so we’ve got a minute.

The whole house is being painted Benjamin Moore Mayonnaise mixed 25% lighter. It’s just a soft off-white. It’s also kind of a grody name for paint.

Ok I'm officially in love with your house and now seeing it, I'm glad you didn't switch the kitchen with the dining room. If you had, it would have ruined the house!

My question is where will you prep?

The whole house is being painted Benjamin Moore Mayonnaise mixed 25% lighter. It’s just a soft off-white. It’s also kind of a grody name for paint.

Please tell you you are keeping that gorgeous natural woodwork.

I'm wondering whether that white will be a bit too light if you cut it with the woodwork?

PS: If you think your color name was weird, I used Cotton Balls.

Oh, you just made my whole entire night. Thank you! This house has been a big labor of love so far. The floors have been refinished and are gorgeous, and painting is currently underway. I am so tired, but we have 2.5 weeks left before we HAVE to move in (current house is under contract), so we’ve got to push through. Very ready for my husband to be back from overseas work.

Prep will likely happen either to the left or the right of the sink/left of the range. We were really stressed about prep space until we realized that in our current kitchen we have a ton of space in which to prep, but only ever really use one very small spot. The only time that we deviate from that spot is for big holidays. In the new house, big holiday extra prep would happen under the microwave.

I’m also hoping to find some sort of way to have a Corian sink with a drain board or a cutting board that fits over it. I’m not sure that’s an option with the Corian sinks, but I hope that it is.

Really, thank you, cpartist. I’ve had a couple of really down days yesterday and today, and your kind words helped me fall back in love with the st00pid house that is draining the life out of me. :)

I will pause for a moment so that cpartist can give me the hairy eyeball, because I know that it is a trend, but it appears to be one that we love, because we keep circling back to it. (And we are total punkers who would usually scoff at following anything that we perceived as trendy, so we are very surprised by our decision.)

lolololol

I love the plan for the angled china cabinet and the reason for it. These are the things that make a house a home.

Love the tiles. Where will you use the white ones and the blue ones?

My ceilings and trim are Cotton Balls. My yellow walls (and there are a lot of them) are BM Copacabana, which makes me think of Barry Manilow every time...

I don’t think that I would be able to request Cotton Balls at the paint counter without laughing.

We are keeping some of the natural woodwork. We had intended to carefully preserve all of it until we realized that almost none of it is original to the house. Much of it entered in the 70s with another big bunch in the 90s. We’re keeping all of the wood windows natural and various bits of other natural wood throughout. The downstairs doors are gorgeous oak, and we’re having them refinished. All of the upstairs woodwork has already been painted, along with the sunroom and kitchen.

We painted a big piece of Sheetrock the mayo color and carried it throughout the house and I *think* that it looks okay with the wood, but I am terrible at design stuff. It definitely looks different room to room, since the natural light is so sparse in the living room and kitchen.

Beckysharp, I keep having to edit any comment that I make about Cotton Balls, but I will say that it appears to be a popular color. I will definitely check it out. I grew up on Barry Mannilow, so I highly approve of Copacabana. :)

I am not sure about the tiles. I love the white ones in the quilt pattern while my husband prefers the blue, all one pattern. He is currently off galavanting around Europe for work while I trudge through my days, so I feel like I really should get my quilted pattern. I could really go either way quite happily. I also fell in love with this Motawi tile last night. I had never heard of it or the Winchester Tile Co. before folks here posted about them, but now I don’t know how I lived without them.

Thankfully our bathrooms need to be renovated at some point, so my tile love can continue elsewhere.

jemimabean, I meant to say I'm sorry to hear about the tornadoes and flooding, and hope you and your family stay safe and untouched.

In this post, LB says that BM Mayonnaise "is a lovely classic cream which looks good in north or south-facing rooms"

https://laurelberninteriors.com/2014/01/04/freshen-home-new-year-part-iii-wall-paint

following

So here is my take on the wood lowers and white uppers: I don't see it as trendy at all. I think the way you are doing it, it gives it the look of an old world unfitted kitchen - esp. with the addition of the green cab. This fits well with your home (IMHO, anyways). I'm not usually a fan of corian, but I think in this case, it's a great choice. Please keep posting updates. It's going to be beautiful.

ps I have spent all day looking for blue and white tile that is not cement tile. Could you share the source for the subways you posted above?

ETA: look at a BM colour called Steam in the Affinity line for your cabs. Our designer recommended it and I've used it in several places where I wanted a true but warm white.

Thanks for the kind words, Daisychain. I’m starting to get really excited about it coming together. I haaaaate shopping and making decorative choices, so I’m glad to be nearing the finish line on decisions.

The subway tiles are from Winchester Tile Co. and are handmade in England, but seem to have dealers throughout the US. They’re offered in different colors and styles. Winchester subway tiles I have not checked prices on them yet, but from reading between the lines on their site, I don’t think that they’ll come cheaply. There’s also not a dealer in my city, so I’ll have to drive almost two hours at some point to check them out. Let me know if you’re able to see them in real life!

Thanks so much for that info, jemimabean. We are doing a budget friendly reno of the kitchen in our lakehouse, so the Winchester probably won't work. Probably for the best, as we have a basement full of 6x6 white tile leftover from our whole home reno that I should probably use to keep in budget. But that blue and white is calling my name - dang.

Just remember that the best advice is to follow your heart, be true to the style of your home and then tweak it to fit with what is current. That seems to be what you are doing. You can never keep up with the trends (well, unless you are a Kardashian), but if the bones suit your home, you can redo the tweaks like change out lighting and hardware 10 years down the line to make current again. (Full disclosure: we did our kitchen in our 100 year old home 13 years ago, in a style similar to what you are doing and then tweaked it 3 years ago, so I may be biased :)

Totally agree about the two tone wood and white cabinets it's totally NOT a trend and I'm so happy you went with it! Kitchens in the early 1900's were very mismatched! Can't wait to see how this turns out.

While it's not ideal, both in terms of the outside door and being a bit further from the sink, in this case I think I'd switch the stove with the fridge. Then you'll have lots of prep space on either side of the stove. I had to do that in my condo kitchen because I only had 24" on either side of my sink, so I'd wash the stuff and then prep it next to the stove. I just feel your space right now is way too tight and that space next to the fridge as you have it now will wind up a dumping space.

This would also allow you to have all drawers and larger drawers in the kitchen. Forget ROI or regular lower cabinets and make sure they are all drawers.

I would also ditch the upper cabinet over the dw as I think it would be better with it open so the light from the window comes in.

What rooms lead off of what doors in the kitchen? I'm wondering if you can close up that larger entry to the right of the teacup cabinet and add some cabinetry there.

PS I love those quilt tiles and think you should get them.

I love what you've chosen, and your kitchen will be perfect in your beautiful home. I live in a 1920's Tudor and am considering a renovation by myself. I hope you'll post updates as you go.

Thanks, Jshore and Casamacho! It really has helped me get a spring back in my step hearing that we aren’t making terrible decisions.

Cpartist, I hadn’t even considered losing the upper cabinet to the left of the sink! I love the idea and will run it by my husband (who does all of the dishes and dishwasher unloading...). I would love more natural light. Would you put shelves there or just leave it empty?

The first thing that I considered was exactly what you’re describing with the fridge and the range, but ended up with this design for two reasons. One, I am five feet tall and not super strong, so the idea of carrying a huge pot of boiling pasta water across the kitchen to the sink didn’t feel great. And two, that spot is a main walk way in the house and it just felt too unsafe. I think that we’ll do okay with tiny prep space - we’ve certainly had kitchens with less.

I’ll take photos of the doors when I’m over tomorrow, but basically all three are used to the point that it didn’t make sense to close any of them off. The one to the right of the china cabinet is our path to the garage/main door that we’ll use, the one to the left of the china cabinet goes to the dining room, and the one to the right of the range goes to the entry way/rest of the house. Below is my absolutely terrible rendering of it.

I am super stoked to hear that you’re Team Quilt Backsplash and will be reporting that to my husband in tomorrow morning’s email.

Cpartist, here are some photos from today (ignore the mess, we aren’t living there yet, so it’s complete chaos) to show what I mean about the walking paths.

The doorway to the right goes to the mud room/main entry that we’ll use and the door to the left goes to the dining room. The china cabinet will be in between.

I very helpfully wrote on the wall and took a close up for you. :)

This was taken from the entry way of the house, which houses the stairs and entry to the living room. It’s looking towards the mud room at the end. The fridge is where we considered putting the range, but it is such a thru way that I ended up nixing it.

Standing in mud room, looking towards front door/entry.

And our weird little mud room. This is the door out to the driveway and garage, but there is an identical door directly across from it that leads to the backyard.

Cabinets are going in! Today is day three of installation and everything should be finished by the end of the day. We still haven’t finalized our countertop or backsplash choices (wheeeee!) but hope to do that soon. We could not be more thrilled with how the cabinets turned out. They are beautifully made, beautifully installed, and just fit the age of the house so well.

Here’s a sneak peek of the china cabinet to house all of my millions of teacups. Obviously there will be glass in the center panels, but I’m also changing out the heavy wood shelves for glass shelving.

(Please ignore the mess in the dining room. We set up a temp kitchen in there and then everything got covered in dust when we sanded, so it’s a total disaster.)

I've been following this thread and can't wait to see it all!! I LOVE your corner cabinet and more importantly the reason for having it!

Argh - i have so much trouble posting! I hadn't seen this thread before, but I'm happy to have found it. Congratulations on getting this far, and I can't wait to see it all. Your china cabinet looks amazing. We also lived in a 1920's English Tudor when my babies were babies, and I loved that house. Corner china cabinet and all....

Trying to post pics of our old house

Thank you so much, Tammy and Becky. We’re stupidly thrilled to finally have them installed. It’s been five months since we first met with the cabinet designer and started talking through plans, which gave us plenty of time to second guess ourselves.

While there is still so much to do in the kitchen (choose and install counters and backsplash, finish painting, get glass installed on cabinets), seeing it start to come together over the past three days gave us the boost needed to keep going. This house has thrown a lot our way since we bought it, and I think that the kitchen finally coming together has made us fall in love again.

Next up: finally decide on counters. Right now it’s down to either glacier white Corian or danby marble. I am not entirely convinced that my husband and I are relaxed enough to live with marble no matter how beautiful it is, so right now we’re leaning towards Corian. I’ll also be back samples of tiles that I love to ask for more cost effective suggestions. But for now...

Pantry, fridge, and then the only drawers that we have in the kitchen area.

Dishwasher goes in the hole on the left; slide in gas range in hole on the right.

The mudroom is just to the right of my beloved china cabinet, and will serve as our teeny tiny drop zone. It’s our main entry into the house (the front door is used almost never) and so it’s pretty hardworking. The kick was not able to be installed back further in the arch because of issues of unrefinished hardwood flooring underneath showing. This is such an awkward area architecturally that I’m astounded it came out as well as it did.

And finally, the china cabinet with knobs installed. Our house did not have any corner built-ins, which is unusual for the neighborhood and age of the house, so I am thrilled to have added one. The cabinet installer did an incredible job getting it in there and reconfiguring the ancient, much painted-over surrounding trim. I can’t wait to have glass cut for both the doors and shelves so that I can fill this bad boy up.

Y’all, I had no idea that I’d get so emotional over cabinets. I was bursting with pride all day. You’d think that I’d given birth to them or something.

Becky, we just cross-posted. I gasped when I saw the photos of your old house. What a gorgeous home. Those built-ins and cabinets are amazing, but I love all of it. That house is special.

Looks SO good! I can't believe you haven't decided on your counter tops - lol. We put Danby in ours, and I LOVE it - but man does it etch. If that will bug you, don't do it. We also put soapstone. Didn't you say you had soapstone in your old kitchen? Didn't you love it?

Ps - the second guessing is exhausting. But if you're picking things you love - it will all work out!

Thank you for sharing! It all looks beautiful!

Becky, we did indeed have and love soapstone but this tiny kitchen is super dark, even on the most sunny days. It just does not get a bunch of natural light, and the soapstone at our old house definitely soaked up much of the brightness in the room. I feel like we need to stay with something light. That’s great to hear about your experience with danby. I’d like to think that we’re roll with it people, but my husband is a delightfully uptight Virgo, and I’m just...uptight. I’m thinking that simple Corian will allow the right backsplash to shine.

Also, we’re getting the stink eye from everyone over not having picked a countertop. Ha! But I cannot picture things that aren’t right in front of me, so first I had to see the cabinets in. Then once we get counters, I’ll be able to start looking for backsplash. I am very much a one step at a time type girl, which I am learning does not serve you well during a renovation. We hadn’t even picked drawer pulls until a week ago, and we only finally did it then because our cabinet guy would do them for free if we had them ready and on site when he arrived, otherwise it would be $5 per pull. We are ridiculous.

You can't go wrong with a plain Corian! My problem is always the tiny samples. Who could tell how it will look!?

Bravissima, Jemima! Those cupboards are utter perfection.

If you look up Anglophilia's kitchen reveal, you will see she used Glacier White Corian with marble subway tiles for the backsplash. She got the beauty of marble without the worries of having it on a countertop. It worked beautifully.

It's beautiful so far, I can't wait to see how it turns out!

Thank you so much, Zalco and AMS! I am still ridiculously happy today.

Zalco, Angophilia’s kitchen and love for Corian is actually one of the things that made me consider using it in this project. Her kitchen is wonderful and has certainly stood the test of time, which is something that we’re after.

Becky, totally nodding along about the tiny 2x2” sample. I keep balancing it on the edge of my cabinets and squinting to try to make a decision. At least with backsplash you can order a whole tile as a sample, so I am looking forward to moving on to that.

The appliances arrived today, so there was another small flurry of excitement. They’ll be installed next Tuesday. We’re about to put in some lovely plywood counters and a temporary sink so that we can function a bit easier. It’s probably a bit pathetic how much I’m looking forward to the plywood. I can have my tea kettle and toaster oven back! And really, what more do you need?

The cabinets are gorgeous. Are they built by a local custom shop? Talk to your countertop supplier and ask if they have a larger sample of the Corian and marble you are considering. Perhaps they have a remnant they could lend you for a better view

Thanks, Lyndee Lee! They were built by Jay Rambo, which happens to be local to us but most of their business is with dealers around the rest of the country. We even got to tour the factory, which was super fun and interesting. I wish that I could have hung out in a corner all day, watching the process. I can’t recommend Jay Rambo enough. They made every part of this so smooth and easy, and our designer, Shannon, is an absolute gem.

Great idea on asking about a larger sample or remnant! I hadn’t even thought about that. Will do so tomorrow.

Jemimabean your kitchen is going to be so adorable and your house is so charming. I love your corner tea cup cabinet and I love the mixed cabinets. Becky2010 you have been blessed to live in such a cute house.
Jemimabean I am a bit jealous, that your 3 day install has been on consecutive days. LOL. My 4 day install has been spread out over several weeks, for various reasons. I am looking forward to seeing your cups, in the cabinet.

@jemimabean - you can also order 10" square samples from the Corian website. I did that - I think it cost $30 (most of the cost was for shipping, not the sample). It was quick and easy.

Thank you so much, Caroline. I am going to put a few things in my china cabinet today, but should probably wait until I get the glass shelves to go too deep with it. We waited an extra month for the cabinets so that we could use this particular cabinet installer. Our cabinet designer kept swearing up and down that he was worth the wait, and he absolutely was. Our house is incredibly wonky because of its age, and there isn’t a plumb line anywhere in it. He somehow made it look like he was working with totally straight lines. He showed up at 8am each day and worked through til 5pm or so without taking any breaks (he brought his lunch, and we offered him snacks. He ate, but kept moving almost the entire time). I want to see a photo of your cabinets so far!

AMS, I can’t thank you enough for that info. Ordering right now. I think that it will really help to see a bigger sample. This site is so full of great info. :)

We just went out of town for a college visit (waaaaah!) and when we got home I was still just as thrilled with the kitchen. This is such a huge relief, because no other part of the renovation of the house has gone smoothly, and we’d started really questioning our ability to make decent choices.

College applications + home renovations make for such a relaxing time....

Ha, Becky...you are not wrong. At this point I think that I’d rather have multiple root canals while touring colleges than ever, EVER do another kitchen renovation. I should have known from reading the posts here that it wouldn’t be smooth sailing, but I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve disliked the process. Mostly due to our own poor planning but also some unforeseen complications, we’ve had to have the plumber and electrician out countless times over the past week. The appliances were installed today, but because of the position of the gas line, the slide in range sticks out an inch beyond what is called for/looks reasonable. The only solution would be to have our cabinet installer come back out to re-set the two small base cabinets on either side of the range, but he is booked out til infinity and I can’t even imagine how bummed our cabinet designer is going to be when we reach out with this request (she’s gone so far above and beyond for us on this project that I feel dreadful even asking). We obviously can’t have the counters templated until we deal with this situation, so we’ll have plywood counters for eternity. My husband decided that they needed to be more water resistant so he bought fake marble contact paper to add to the plywood and at least that is making me LOL.

I’m just kind of down in the dumps and questioning my choices again (this time appliances). I have to head out of town on Thursday for work and honestly I think that it will be good for me to have a bit of space from this. I intend to take some stellar naps when I’m not at the conference.

Jemimabean I am down in the dumps with you. The counter installer canceled again. This makes 4 times and 3 weeks. GC is looking for another fabricator. We are now into 5 months and 6 days. I laughed at your DH and the shelf paper. Great idea...I might just do that and tell my GC "I give up". Here is my china cabinet...I can not wait, to decorate it, so I put a fall hedgehog, in it. LOL

Oh my, Caroline. That is such a huge bummer. Your patience must have worn very, very thin by now. Your china cabinet looks amazing! I can’t wait to see it finished and filled with your things. The hedgehog is very cute and I love the carefully balanced plant on what I’m guessing is your island? As much as I hate to say it, misery loves company, so hearing your tale of woe gave me some much-needed perspective. In fun news, have you picked pulls and knobs?