Your new kitchen is beautiful!! The backsplash looks gorgeous. I like the extra cabinet at the top of the peninsula - you did a beautiful job!

What a pretty kitchen. Your "before" cabs were so typically 1970's. Love your Baby Bumbo, too.

Your kitchen looks really great! Congratulations! A question re: your hood. Is that the 9" Ventahood? If so it must be 21 inches deep. Has it proved to be enough fan for your range? Also, did you get the the 300 or 600 cfm. And finally, how is the fan noise level? I am currently over researching which vent to get and am leaning toward the 9" Ventahood. Anything you can share will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

bungalowgal -- our ventahood is the 9" 300cfm. I am happy with the hood, but I do wish I got the 600cfm, or deeper model. Its is fine most of the time, and it helps that the kitchen has a big window and sliding door so we get a lot of ventilation, but it sometimes has a problem keeping up with heavy smoke. Part of the problem is, as other posters have mentioned, the high heat burners are on the front of the range, so when smoke is bellowing out it goes up and hits the front edge of the hood instead of going into the hood, causing some smoke to escape. This is why a deeper hood would be better. You might notice the cabinet above the hood is 3 inches higher than the rest. This was done because I wanted the hood as high as possible, but within the manufacturer's recommend height, because I didn't want to feel like I'm ducking or going to hit my head on the hood. This extra couple of inches probably means more smoke escaping too, but I like the feeling of extra headroom -- and I've still bonked my head on the corners of the hood and it hurts.

The noise level is good. You can certainly here it, but I wouldn't call it loud, but we also have 1 blower whereas units with higher cfms have 2 blowers so they might be louder. If you turn the blower on speed 1 it will automatically kick up to 2 when the heat gets too high. The best part is that it kicks back down to 1 once I'm done cooking and then heat has decreased. Its not very loud at all on 1.

I just cleaned the hood last night and it is relatively easy to clean -- cleaning anything is a pain to me. However, the blower housing plate just unscrews with thumbscrews (no tool required) and then the housing itself just unclips. I just put it in the dishwasher and then sprayed down the inside of the hood with a water/degreaser mix and wiped it out. The only problem is the blower wheel itself. It was filthy and the spokes or blades in the wheel are really close together so scrubbing with a toothbrush didn't work too well. You can unscrew it with a T-hex wrench, which I don't have but I'm sure its only a couple of bucks at the hardware store, so I'll get one this week and then put it in the dishwasher as well. I was suprised to see how much grease was in the housing, which proves it is working.

Overall we are happy with the hood, just wish I had stepped up and gotten more. Remember, a big part of what you need will depend on the range and how you cook. I like to pan-roast and pan-sear a lot, so it creates a lot of smoke/heat. My advice is to get as much hood as you can afford and there's no such thing as overkill.

Hope this helps, good luck.

Dear abd1,

Thank you so very much for your informative and detailed response to my question. I don't have near as powerful a stove as yours so a 9" might work. I've looked at the 18" and think it might be too much stainless for our small kitchen. Wish there was a 9" that was 24" deep - that might be perfect.

I love your kitchen!!! In fact, I am thinking about using several of the same things you used, because I like it so much and we have a 1924 Craftsman style house. We love modern design but don't want the kitchen to look so modern that it's out of place in the house.

If you don't mind, I'd love to know how much the IKEA cabinets cost? We are looking at the same style of cabinet, but we don't live near an IKEA, so we are trying to decide if the savings would be worth the extra work involved in ordering and assembling the IKEA cabs instead of going with the Shenandoah line at Lowe's.

Thansk so much! I also love that glass Subway tile.

alliekj -- thanks for the kind words. Funny because we live in a 1969 ranch, so midcentury mod would work perfect in our house, but we like the craftsman/cottage look, just with a little modern update.

Anyway, our Ikea cabinets came out to be about $2200-$2500. the original price was $2200, but I made some changes and broke a couple of cabinets during assembly so I think I wound up spending about $2500. This was my fault not the cabinets and so far we are impressed with their quality especially for the price.
What can easily add to the price is the time spent revisiting IKEA if you make changes or need parts. We were lucky that an IKEA opened in Portland right when we started our project. Actually we waited for it to open instead of driving to Seattle, but I made about 10 trips back to store. Again, this was mainly due to me making changes in the design and needing a couple replacement cabinets, however since you mentioned you don't live near an IKEA this is something to keep in mind. I would spend a lot of time in the planning process and scrutinizing your plan to make sure it is how you want it. If you haven't done so, check out www.ikeafans.com. There are a ton of kitchen ideas and modifications that can be made to their cabinets to make them more custom if your plan requires that. Assembling the cabinets is relatively easy, even though I messed up a couple of them. If you do get the IKEA cabinets, make sure and pick up a handful of spare screws, bolts, and dowels -- which are all free at the store -- before you leave just in case some are missing or get lost. Also, make sure the sales clerkk includes the drawer dampers in your order. They do cost $6 per drawer but are so worth it and a major highlight of the IKEA cabinets. My clerk didn't put them in the order and it caused another return trip to the store to pick them up. And, if you haven't been to an IKEA before there is almost no way to simply run in, get something, and get out. It always takes forever, and I know our local store like its my house by now.

One thing I've noticed about anyone with IKEA cabinets is that everyone I've heard from who has them loves them, even people who were originally skeptical are impressed once they're installed. My contractor, who's also an engineer, who installed them had a crush on them. He couldn't stop talking about how simple and well made they are especially for the price. And, everyone who's been over to see our kitchen can't believe they're from IKEA. Feel free to ask any more questions, good luck in your project.

I love your kitchen. I have been in love with the Stat Kitchen for a long time and hoping one day to do mine with it as well. You even have the same hardware that I love.
Your choice of granite is wonderful! I had always thought black but I love yours!

Hi abd1 - your kitchen beautiful! I was exciting to come across your kitchen because we have the same countertop and we love your backsplash. Our kitchen will have expresso coloured cabinets but I think the glass tile and white kashmir still works. Can you share what tile and grout colour you used? Is the tile grey/blue in tone? I know there's some mid-greys in the granite.

woodbronte -- the tile is from susanjablonmosaics.com and I think it was the pale sky blue. It does have a little of a grey tint to it. We were originally looking at doing dark wood cabinets, but our house is surrounded by huge doug firs and has lower ceilings so we don't get a ton of light. We tried keeping the kitchen as bright as we could. The Kashir White granite looks great with dark woods too. The grout is just bright white. I'd love to see some pictures of your kitchen.

Abd1 - we're a good six months away from completing our new home and kitchen. I'll make sure I post some pictures on the forum when it's completed. It's funny you were struggling with white vs. dark wood cabinets. We figure we can do the dark stain now as it's very current and trendy but when it becomes dated we can paint it white. Mind you the cost of this dark stain was expensive so painting these cabinet is far off in the future : )

I went to the local tile store looking for glass tile and they do look great but comes in a limited number of shades. I could also order from the site you provided but there's so many shades! I prefer to buy local if I run into problems. While at the tile store I noticed some really great 1x2 inch creme marble in brick pattern. I think it would like great and classic but not the "wow" I think we would get with the blue/grey glass. It's such a hard decision!

I really want to "bump" this thread into 2010 and get an update on abd1's kitchen now. The Ikea Stat doors is the exact way I want my High Cabinets to look, if I can manage to get an order correct and delivered--or as a second option, picked up from the Atlanta store.

I like the white cabs, the beadboard style Stat doors, the gray of stainless steel. But I diverge there, because I want the range side of our galley style kitchen to have stainless counter tops, and the sink side of the kitchen to have Silestone quartz, maybe in Stellar Snow which has some gray and black sparkles in it. Then I am totally used to a yellow wall paint, which is a soft ochre color like Behr's THREADED GOLD in a latex satin enamel. A grayed backsplash area with some glass mosaic interspersed with some small stainless pieces would work for me. Oh yes, I have two options for the floor, both unglazed Italian porcelain from Lowes (we've used both colors elsewhere) either Roman Salmon, a soft dull terracotta, or Rialto White, which is a tannish grayed white. Both are easy to clean, love using a narrow grout line.

Not big differences, but then our kitchen is much smaller than abd1's.

Hello, Where did you go get your countertop from? We are in the midst of kitchen reno and looking for countertop. If you dont mind, how much did you spend on it?
Thanks!

Does anyone know where i could find the Stat replacement doors? 2 of mine are damaged.

I have a whole stat white kitchen available.........most of the doors are in good condition.

Julie, if you're willing to part out and ship, there are a couple of cabinet doors I need for a kitchen... How best to get you the info and find out prices?