Calling all designers! Kitchen cabinets


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Old 11-10-12, 09:44 AM
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Calling all designers! Kitchen cabinets

Hi all

I am closing on a house in a couple of weeks and am very interested in what you all have to say about the kitchen. The cabinets are a honey oak color and I think it could be nice with an appropriate countertop (we are leaning towards granite). Thoughts? We are also very open to refinishing the cabinets, but are not interested in painting them. We want to have a slate grey accent wall between the kitchen and living area (seen in the background of this picture), but we don't want things too grey. Help??

We also will not be replacing the appliances for the meantime - they work fine, so white it is.

 
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Old 11-10-12, 09:47 AM
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Oh and I should mention that we getting rid of the hanging cabinet above the breakfast bar, removing the large florescent light box, and replacing all hardware. There will be pendant lighting where the hanging cabinet is now.
 
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Old 11-10-12, 11:33 AM
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IMO, granite would look a little out of place due to its natural variaton in colors, but quartz (manmade) will give you more color choices and can be a little more consistent in color and texture, which I think would look best. Something like this:



image credit: coast2coastcountertops dot com
 
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Old 11-10-12, 12:44 PM
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In addition to removing the cabinets, I would also remove the step up breakfast bar area. This would open up the space even more. You are neutral enough that any granite countertop will work within your color pallet. If you choose a granite supplier that allows you to pick out the actual slab that will be used, you can tailor it to your exact kitchen needs. Inject an undermount zero radius sink and stylish faucet and I'll buy your home.....(just dreaming).
 
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Old 11-10-12, 01:43 PM
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Your kitchen appears bright and well lighted and it's sure to improve with different ceiling lights. Are you replacing the flourescents with cans?

JMO but I think that replacing the cabinet hardware would go a long way towards updating the cabinets. Again my opinion but I kinda like the cabinets as they are. I'm just not too excited about the white knobs. Are you replacing appliances?

When we refurbed our kitchen we visited a granite installer. He had dozens of granite samples available. Then he sent us to his supplier's warehouse. They had literally hundreds of slabs available for us to choose from. I like granite simply because of the huge variety of colors and patterns available. The other big plusses are it's durability, low (no) maintenance and the value it adds to your house.

You can get the maintenance and durability in engineered stone but you can't get the uniqueness and variety that mother nature provides.
 
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Old 11-10-12, 02:25 PM
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She said she's replacing the hardware and keeping the appliances.
 
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Old 02-15-13, 09:05 AM
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Update! And one more question on backsplash

Hi all

Thanks for your input! We ended up refinishing the cabinets ourselves - took the doors off, sanded them down to the natural oak, and just sealed them with a few coats of poly. What a world of difference! Took almost 100 man hours between my husband and I (all the details had to be done by hand with sand paper...eek!), but so worth it. We also took down the hanging cabinet, installed new pendants and a new flushmount, put in new hardware, and just got the countertops installed yesterday! We are in LOVE with the granite that we got (called Avalanche though Precision Countertops in Kent, WA) but now we are struggling with the backsplash. We wanted to do subway tile, but are torn on a color. Here is an updated picture of the kitchen, along with a close up of the granite. Thanks for all your help!!

By the way, if anyone is interested, we did all the work in the kitchen for less than 1500 bucks (including buying 2 hand sanders, hardware, lighting, and paying an electrician to install the new lighting), with an additional 3900 for the granite slab, demo of the old countertops, and installation. But, we did the whole 24 months no interest through Home Depot for the counters, so totally doable!!

Rebecca

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Old 02-15-13, 09:43 AM
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Looks really nice. Good job! Thanks for coming back and sharing.

I think any of the colors in the countertop would work well as a backsplash. Best to keep it neutral, IMO.
When we did a new backsplash, we bought a couple of the tiles we liked, so we could see how it looked first. Makes the job of picking much easier, then you can return the ones you don't want. I went with the white subway tile, which is a classic, that's always in style.

p.s. my name's Rebecca, too!
 
 

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