I have been reading this forum for a while to help with our kitchen remodel. We have learned a lot from reading other posts and greatly appreciate the expertise of this group. We are down to the final stages and would like some feedback.

Our kitchen remodel will include new cabinets, countertops, flooring, backsplash, range and microwave. I attached the current layout as well as the planned one.

Our main goals were to open up the space by eliminating the peninsula, to lighten the room with lighter cabinets (current cabinets are stained dark walnut), and modernize a 40 year old kitchen. This includes our only dining area so we need to have space for that although at our stage of life we do not have many dinners with a lot of guests. I started with a Lowes KD who was quite good and then had a custom cabinet company visit my home and he made a few tweaks to that design. The pictures of cabinets do not show his tweaks.

I have settled on cherry cabinets with a light to medium stain. The doors will be mitered raised panel with a double bead and drawers with a nice beaded design.

Please let us know if you see any issues or suggestions for our layout and plans. A couple of items to note are:

- Cabinets will extend 1 more foot � 10�8" of room (length = 19�7"). Is that encroaching too much on dining area? My DW is concerned about the loss of cabinets from peninsular and the proposed design alleviates that.

- Custom cabinet guy suggested leaving corner wall cabinets as is rather than putting a diagonal cabinet there as proposed by Lowes. He claims it is more functional as is with more space. This seems contrary to what other KDs suggest and what I see in stores. However, he may be right because the current space is quite accessible. Thoughts?

My wife wants Quartz countertops because she is concerned about stains or scratching of granite or other counter types. She is picking that, the backsplash and the tile floor.

Colors:

As a guy, I need help matching everything. We will have white oak floors with light finish in dining area (same as our living room and foyer), tile TBD in kitchen. The door and baseboard trim will be white except quarter round which will match cabinets or oak floor, depending on where it is. Should we paint bay window white or stain to match cabinets or white oak floor? I installed it last year and left it with bare wood until we knew what we would be doing with the kitchen.

The cabinets will come with 5" crown molding. I plan to put matching crown in the dining area and have option of having it stained like cabinets or painting it white. Any suggestions?

Thanks for any feedback you can provide. I will do another post about quotes I got from different providers which should prove interesting and helpful to others.

Here is a link that might be useful: Layout: current and proposed