I haven't been here in a while, I have missed seeing and hearing about all the new kitchens! I thought I would post an update, now that we have lived with our kitchen for over a year. I really love my two tone cabinets, the cherry base cabinets are warm and inviting and the mushroom wall cabinets keep the kitchen from being too dark. After all the angst of the decision, I am so glad I went with the solid wall of cabinets. And I am still in awe of my granite, do not for one single second regret the money spent on it! We ended up doing a stacked beige subway tile for the backsplash, with a herringbone pattern behind the range and I am very happy with my choice. As for appliances, I still love my microwave drawer, I use it every day and the only complaint I have is that the panel doesn't light up well. And I absolutely adore my fridge, love it so much we got the same one for my son! The produce drawer is still my favorite feature, and the ice maker my least favorite. We have never run out of ice, but we are a small family and when we have company, we always use bagged ice. But I can see this being an issue for a larger family without a second fridge with ice maker. I am very happy with my Bosch dishwasher, it does a great job and I've never had the goop issue some were having when I bought mine. The big miss in my kitchen is the range, I should have gone with induction. And I really dislike the surface of my range, it is a pain to keep clean, I miss the ease of my Thermador cooktop. And if I had it to do over again, I would have done drawers in the two base cabinets that don't have them. I still cannot believe how much more organized my kitchen is because of the drawer bases! I had a hard time wrapping my brain around how they would function for me, but after living with my kitchen for a year, I would do an all drawer kitchen in a heartbeat. Overall, I am so grateful to have a kitchen that is both functional and beautiful, and I so appreciate all the advice and encouragement I got from this forum!

Well every seller and flipper anywhere near me paints cabinets white..:) or so it seems And sometimes makes no sense whatsoever, given architecture, style, other materials..irritating. Don't get me wrong..i would never pass on the house I love because of that..even if they would be completely wrong for the space (in my place they were completely wrong-color wise, style-wise, everything.. yet we still bought the house lol. well, eighty percent of interior finishes was wrong for the house so..) things like that -I don't see them as making or breaking the deal. Location, bones, layout, amount of rooms you need to accommodate your family-yes. Well price of course. As much as I loved several houses-they were too small, or were not in a neighborhood that'd work for us, or were simply too expensive So no, I wouldn't pass on a house because of the cabinets, whatever color they would be..and especially if they were right for the space:) I like grays but not cold grays for example. And I prefer warm whites to bright whites. Yet when it makes allover sense, it's easier to look past it, and make do, for a time being, or maybe for years even. And in some cases-you look past it even if it doesn't make any sense. But it's better if it does. It's rarely a question of one color..even though colors do have huge influence over us. it's a question of how everything comes together. Same as with everything. Take a face you like-many times, a nose could be better, and teeth could be straighter, and whatnot. Yet you don't look at it separately...you do of course, but you don't care because it's more than just the sum of elements. PS I read the funniest description in one listing recently. It went: "This house is classic and timeless, yet trendy and current". It looks like they've read all the blogosphere on the subject of design and decor, and decided to construct that sentence, so as not to miss anything...))))

Thank you for all great comments! Love the pictures everyone posted. I have decided to contact an interior designer (not just a kitchen designer). Here are a few pictures of what I have in hand. Another issue is there are plantation shutters on the only window in the kitchen which, due to shutter design, reduce the size of the actual window light and the adjacent breakfast room has french doors out to a covered porch. It basically has no light coming in those doors. We are planning to remove the kitchen window shutters. They won't be able to open with a new faucet. Silly design! The samples are from our custom cabinet maker, Mullet Cabinet here in Ohio. They are an "Amish" cabinet company but $$ so I want to make the right desicion. They are a company that use baked, conversion varnish process on painted cabinets. Some of the local custom guys don't. Small sample above oven. It was done on brown maple so the color variation is off. Not a true sample. Here is a sample door they made for the island. We were considering going with an off white perimeter with wood stain island. I think this stained door looks yellow in my house. It is a standard stain they offer but mixed to 50%. The perimeter cabinets are beaded inset 45" (9 foot ceiling) with a rail (2 seperate panels) to mimic a stacked cabinet look. Both the perimeter and island cabinets have the same profile. Just island has the raised panel added. We are considering adding a simple leaded glass to the upper section of the perimeter cabinets. Granted this is the intent if we go with white since I think flat panel white looks too big and plain. If not sure what to do if we go with stained - raised panel, flat panel, glass?? Are stacked cabinets with upper glass going out of trend? The kitchen is open concept to family room where the columns and built-ins are all raised panel off-white. Which is why I was trying to pull in raised panel in island. You can get a glimspe of what the family room columns look like in the first photo. Those are the columns in our living room/dining room.

That's not a good gray - way too dark and "somber". I have a gray kitchen and I love it. It's SW Repose Gray and it's a lovely light color that pops with white woodwork. You're talking about spend a lot of money on a kitchen that has its issues. Can you actually open the door of the refrigerator all the way - the one up against the door? Believe me, I understand about wanting to make it better when one can't afford to gut it. I did that TWICE before I finally got my new kitchen 32 years later!!! No two-tone in this kitchen. You want to keep it neutral and calm. You don't really want to draw attention to anything part of it at this point, so keep it very simple. And don't spend too much on it. It's a functioning kitchen - just save and save until you can get what you want.