quality of cabinets is MUCH more important than a mediocre cabinet in a neat color. I would NOT use the IKEA cabinets. If you love the gray, do a fabulous, rich wall color and very cool cabinet pull and drawer hardware. The rationale that gray cabinets stay cleaner is not really something that should be a factor in your decision. You need to clean your cabinets around the pulls and wipe them regularly ANYWAY, whether dark wood or gray or white. Kitchens are full of steam and oil and dirty hands so just realize cleaning cabinet doors is something you need to do regularly. Get your pizzaz with great wall color and cool accessories and wonderful hardware.

How long are you planning to live in in this house??? IKEA mdf cabinets will not stand up over time. perhaps get plywood boxes(which will stand up) and Ikea doors if Ikea has a color or design you like. ALSO, please do not get gray cabinets, dark floors and quartz counters with a gray veining, and dark wood floors with SS appliances. Every part of this is all the fad of the moment and the entire look will be outdated within 4 years. Gray is a difficult color to live with. If you must go with todays fad of gray, then use it on your walls where it can easily be changed, when you get tired of it or when the new fad comes. White cabinets never, ever go out of style. never. If the space is small use white appliances. If you have more room and more money use real SS appliances, not aluminum doors, with black or gray painted sides. If you have pets who shed or kids that make messes, go with lighter floors. Dark floors show every foot print and speck of dust and every hair. Only use dark floors if you love the look and you have it through-out the house. Use a counter top that is easy to clean, hard to damage and plain, no swirls or glitter or chunks. If you need less than 12 linear feet of counter-top material, go with anything you want, because it will be relatively inexpensive to replace when you get tired of it or when it is discolored/damaged. Additionally, the momentary fad in back splashes is to be avoided. Go with something easy to clean. I like stainless because it is so easy to install & clean, a few sprays with Windex and wipe with paper towels. I do not like to clean grout lines on tile. Think about chocolate cake batter that has whirled off your mixer beaters and splooped all over you glass or stone tile back splash and its lovely grout!!! Best luck to you

Patricia's kitchen is gorgeous! I've always noticed that in very modern homes, Ikea cabinets are used 9 out of 10 times. Those clean lines and finish choices are very attractive. Patricia is absolutely correct that the right installer is the critical element to making Ikea cabinets work. One note - for anyone who thinks Ikea cabinets are cheaper than some others, I think the amount of time the installer has to spend putting all the pieces together (an Ikea hallmark) raises the bottom line.

Patricia - love your kitchen!!

We do plan on living in this house for a long time, probably at least 10-15 years. We did a complete gut and renovation on it, top to bottom, so I don't want to go through that again any time soon!! And it is over $1 million home, which is pretty high for the Pittsburgh market, so it's very large and has plenty of room for us once we start having kids.

Kristina makes a good point that gray might be a fad that will pass in a few years... Although since we are choosing solid wood doors instead of standard ikea doors, repainting them down the road would be a fairly inexpensive option. We have dark floors throughout our house now, and I love them, despite the never ending cleaning of dog hair :-) So we do plan on putting dark wood throughout the whole new house, including the kitchen. I've sort of been considering some lighter/grayish toned flooring, but with that, I'm definitely more concerned that is a fad that I would tire of soon. And replacing flooring in a 4500 sq ft home would not be a cheap or easy change.

We were trying to save a little on cabinets to put more of our budget into appliances, so we will have a 48" Wolf gas range, and a 64" Electrolux fridge/freezer (wish we could afford SubZero, but Electrolux at least has the same look)

I like the idea of a stainless backsplash too - does anyone have any pictures of that?

Thanks guys for your input!!

I actully have the Fridgedaire (Electrolux) side by side fridge/ freezer and have had them for 8 yrs without one problem in the meantime friends have had a service man out 5 times and ruined tons of food with their Sub Zero so be happy.

I had an ikea kitchen for 4 years and I loved the cabinets! They were easy to put together and really easy to clean! I would use them again in a heartbeat!

I thought I should add that the reason I did not go with ikea this time is for size issues, but I did do gray cabinets in our new house. My parents laughed at us when we told them what color we were using, and now they love it! I think it's all about the end result! I do love the new double drawer stuff in the new ikea line! Go with your gut so you won't regret color choice down the road.

What countertop color name is in your picture? Having hard time deciding with gray cabinets.

Many folks have great success with Ikea cabinets. I feel like plywood is overrated and other cabinet materials are underrated. I have particle board framed cabinets in my kitchen for 15 years now and I have have a couple of leaks under the sink that went unnoticed and my cabinets are just fine. They look the same as they did when they were installed.

Many manufacturers of frameless cabinets use MDF or particle board for the boxes and they hold up just fine.

Find what you love and go for it!

Good luck