This kitchen is such an inspiration to me! We are about to put an offer on a 1942 cottage in pretty bad shape. But there's an O'keefe & Merrit stove that I will keep and have refurbished. I work as a nanny/cook in a very upscale home, so I know I want elegant, just in a smaller space. I wish I could just hire Katie to come to L.A. and say, "Just make my kitchen exactly like yours!" I especially love the refrigerator. Are the bottom drawers the freezer part? Or is it right side fridge and left side freezer? Thank you!

I usually do not like the 'old world' forced 'age'. The glazed cabinets, rubbed and glazed painted walls to look ye-olde. Especially in new construction. Sayde's kitchen? Gorgeous. Cohesive, beautiful choices. Not at all forced fake. Stunning cabinets. What a nice grout color. No 'kountry kute' decoration, feature tile thing behind and above stovetop. Just kind of perfect, is't it? Many different qualities in subway tile. I have some samples somewhere from a past project. One of the super cheap ones had a slightly varied surface that was lovely. Another one looked like plastic and had a blue tint to it. Just get some samples and mock up a small section. Test your grout choice. See how it looks in natural light. And make sure all your boxes have the same batch #. Some crackle looks strange, some glazes are almost transparent. If one choice seems 'crafty' to you, try another.

hockey, i think I did consider Pearl (I can't remember now though what it looked like... maybe it was the one that would have provided slightly more contrast?? can't remember). what sort of overall look are you going for in your kitchen? could you draw off of those other colors (yellows, browns, greens) for you backsplash? maybe it would provide a WOW factor if that is something you'd like. If you went with white subway tiles, that would be a really clean look and you could get a little punch by going with a medium toned grout (maybe tan to pick up on the browns/yellows??) beachbum, the stain was purchased through Carlisle. It is called Indian Summer. It didn't come as dark as I would have liked but I learned a lot about staining floors during this process and am happy to pass along what I learned. The floor finisher did three samples for me: * one coat of stain * two coats of stain * one coat of stain on conditioned floors the one coat on conditioned floors came out closest to the Carlisle Sample I had based my decision on (but still wasn't quite as dark). I think what they do to condition floors is wet them somehow to open up the pores of the wood, this allows the stain to seep in more readily. I would highly suggest you test the stains on your wood floors before proceeding. I would have been SO disappointed with either just one or two coats of stain. It wasn't anywhere near the Carlisle sample. They did the samples of my floors before doing the final sanding so it didn't really matter as it all got sanded off. I have two extra gallons of the Indian Summer stain that I over-purchased (unopened still in box that they shipped it to me). As I paid $60 per gallon, I'd love to recoup so of the cost. Any interest in purchasing it from me? I can ship it to you quite easily if so. If not, no worries.... just me trying to get a little pocket money.

First we have to figure out which door. I think I don't like Pal's for this exercise because they have a less pronounced grain than most of the golden oak I've seen. I'm thinking along the lines of LWO's 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 or 11, or the one I posted. The grain is too fine on Pal's, the color isn't yellow/orange enough on LWO's 1, 3, 4, 6, 9 and 13. Twelve is so ratty it's impossible to believe anyone would keep them (maybe they could be painted). Speaking of which, is the rule going to be no painting? I think it should be. What about staining? I've been thinking of the exercise as how to work with the color as-is. What's the consensus?