you will save quite a bit of money from changing from 10' plates to 9'. framing costs lower, drywall costs lower, less siding, etc. Not to mention save money on heating and cooling. PLus this thread mentions possible design issues with it and added costs associated with it. Our current design uses 9' plates in general, but the entry and dining bump up to 10' plates. we are using an 8' full glass front door. the living space is 9' plates with a 10' tray ceiling built into the trusses. kitchen is also 9' and we are using 42" high cabinets. in the kitchen consider indirect uplighting/cove lighting as a main source of light. Ironically most people load kitchens with cans. Cans are one of the worst lighting sources for a kitchen since it cast shadows on the work surface since you are blocking the light. Undercabinet lighting set to the front edge of the upper and indirect uploading will provide overall better lighting of the space. not having soffits will allow lighting above your cabinets.

There is a lot of natural light in the room and also plenty of artificial light available for night. The almost all of the family room wall to the left (West) of the fireplace wall (North) is glass. It is about 8 feet of fixed pane floor to almost ceiling and 4 feet of sliding door. Also, we will be adding a lot of painted surface. Currently, the part of the walls not covered by the rock fireplace are covered with pickled redwood. We will be taking that out and painting the walls so the East wall and the area around the TV and above the fireplace will be painted. I have trouble seeing painted cabinets there. Also, it is the room is the main play area for our grandchildren who are here frequently. One purpose of the storage in the cabinets is to give a place for their toys. I think wood will hold up better there. Breezy, we have a sketch of the area, but it's too big for our scanner. I'll try to make a smaller one and post it later. You have the general idea correct. The North wall is a bit over 17 feet. Left to right it will have (tall cabinet means 92" high and low cabinet means 30" high - the measurements below are widths): 42" tall cabinet - holds left speaker 24" tall cabinet - middle holds components and media computer 66" low cabinet - flat panel wall mounted above 48" fireplace 24" tall cabinet - holds right speaker The width of the left hand cabinet will be adjusted to fill the space available after the fireplace is framed in.

Thanks sombreuil_mongrel for your post. I didn't know that having wider bottom rails and narrow stiles was true Shaker. Good to know if we go with 3 inches on both the stiles and rails we will be craftsman style. I do like the look of the beefier frames. We saw that look in one high end kitchen and were very happy that Scherr's could accommodate that request. I checked the Scherr's site again and they offer a 5/32 diameter roundover profile (profile K) which is very close to your 1/8' diameter recommendation. Hopefully, that will offer enough paint chip and stain scuffing protection as mentioned by live_wire_oak. Carol

I have a 36" stock bifold door on a bedroom closet. Stiles are 2" wide. Top is 4.5" high and bottom is 8.25" high. These are one panel shaker doors. The stiles look a little skinny but are ok. They would probably be a good width for a narrower door. I used a cabinet knob. My 22" 5 panel doors (custom designed by the door company) have 3.75" rails in the middle, 4.25" stiles on knob side, 4.5" stiles on hinge side. They look thick. If you figure 2/3 of that, yours might be 2.5" in the middle and close to 3" on stiles. So I would say 2-3" on stiles and middle rails. Larger top rail, and even larger bottom rail. If you are matching other shaker doors in the house, take those into consideration, especially for top and bottom rails. But if you are using standard doorknobs, you need at least 4.25" stiles for the knobs to not look crowded. That only gives you about 3/4" distance from the panel. That only leaves 6" of panel compared to 9" of stile. That would look off to me. My five panel doors have about 9" of stile to 11" of panel, and it still looks thick. I think you need to have skinnier stiles and use cabinet knobs. Looking back at your design, I think you can go bigger on top and bottom rails if you want. That may satisfy your need for bigger stiles. You might be able to go slightly bigger on stiles and middle rails too. Make sure you have enough panel. As is, it looks more like cabinet doors to me than closet doors. Here is my five panel door. If you are doing only 3 panels, I would play with wider middle rails, but no wider than the stile width. (Sorry so blurry.)