And I can't decide if I want to mix these knobs with existing chrome pulls for my top upper cabinets.

I say go for it.

Ladies your kitchens are looking awesome. I'm jealous working in my dysfunctional rental kitchen. LOL.

Cheryl, will you be watching Westminster in the morning when the AHT's are shown for the first time? Terri, Ryan and Karyn and Sue Medhurst seem to have the most AHT's showing.

Thx cpartist! At least you'll have a brand new home soon without having to live in the construction zone this time :)

my island pendants arrived today. Haven't yet had a chance to open up the box!

smm5525, I really love your sink. Sometimes I wish I'd have explored sinks more. I'm happy with what I have, but I wonder if it could have been better. I like the idea of mixing your pulls and knobs.

cpartist, I'm at work, but I should be able to keep up with some of it via social media. It's a pretty big day for AHTs and the core builders of the breed. If only Bonnie could have seen this day. Will you be watching?

***************************

We had our kitchen reveal/Valentine's party on Saturday night. I think we had around 40 guests, probably 50 including children. There were so many people in my kitchen and the noise level was a bit much. Some people spilled out into other parts of the house, but the majority hung out in the kitchen. As crowded as it was with people, it was still possible to move around in there.

Typical of anything I've ever planned, in my mind's eye all the food was going to be spaced attractively and have lots of wow factor. Reality was that things were jammed in, especially after people started adding things to the spread. It was still awesome, just not magazine spread awesome.

The prep island was our drink making station and most of the stuff was contained to the backside and the prepping side stayed clear for the most part. Kind of amazing considering.

Everyone loved the new kitchen and were wow'd by the features. When I was asked for the first time for a kitchen tour - while standing in the kitchen - by someone who had been in the kitchen for some time - lol - it took me a second to realize that they wanted to see all the details, like the dishwasher, dish drawers, etc. The things that people seemed to get the biggest kicks out of were the microwave drawer, the Utrusta push opener on the trash cabinet, and the refrigerator drawers. They also loved the Infolight that the dishwasher projects onto the floor when it's running. The granite was another big hit and my bar (cue sound effects) was admired its due share. People were shocked that our flooring was LVP and not tile. They loved it.

Two of our friends have worked in the food industry as chefs and they commented on how functional the layout was - which to me was the biggest compliment. James (BF) told one friend that I designed it and she must have spread the word, because I had four different people come up to me to say they had heard that I had designed the kitchen and how fantastic it was. Of course I told them that I had the help of everyone on Houzz/GW and how much I had relied on this site. Thank you, Houzz friends!

Monday morning I sat down on the bench (in the kitchen) to put my shoes on and I looked over and there was a pile of sawdust! LOL, yeah, we're classy like that. I swear you can clean something up one day and the next day the carpenters leave a mess and it goes under the radar. Two days of cooking and working my tail off in that room, and there was a pile of sawdust right there. LOL, oh well.

Love your sink!!

Cheryl, sounds like a hit! Wow, that's a lot of people and you still were able to have it function as planned. Success!

Totally off topic: Westminster Dog Show

cpartist, Kane (Bur-Way Trin 2 Raise Some Kane) owned by Patty Smith took BOB today. His pedigree goes back to Joyce Appel's and my lines. His sire is out of a Lenny/Brinda daughter (Joyce's) and his dam is out of Ono, who is a Double Shot daughter. Pretty cool. :)

Here is Double Shot as a youngster. He was a coated variety, meaning he carried one copy of the hairless gene.

Here is a bitch that I sent to the Czech Republic, Indabuff's Double Burj Dubai. Her call name is Debi. She is a Double Shot daughter. She did very well showing in Europe. She's produced a son that has also been very successful in the show ring in Europe.

And this is Sean. He's in Russia. He is out of Joyce's kennel and he also goes back to my line.

One more of Sean.

Fun, playful dogs.

smm5525, we had a service technician in to verify that our broiler is not working on our Wolf M-Series oven. While he was there he looked over all of our appliances and he mentioned that with the induction cooktop that if you don't use heavy pots and pans that you do not get the full power. He also said that before Wolf got their own line of pots and pans they used to recommend Emeril's. Just thought you may want to know that considering you have avoided the heavier pots and pans.

Wednesday the cabinetry guys redid our oven installation and we absolutely love the flush installation. We're so glad we stuck tight and insisted that they can it from standard. I'll get some pictures of it soon.

Cheryl, how wonderful! Glad you got the flush install. Thanks for the tip about the pots. How do you like the wolf ones?

We finally got our glass cabinet doors in! I haven't styled yet, but now have a place for mugs and cups

Here are the completed appliance garage doors. They still have to fix the top magnetic catch so the bifold stays put, but it's one of my fave things in kitchen. I decided on Crystal knobs with polished chrome vs brass. The brass shade they have wasn't quite the right color for the rest of the brass we have.

Oh, my that's gorgeous! I love your kitchen and can't wait to see more of it.

Re the Wolf pots and pans: I really like them. Nice weight. Double handles on the bigger pieces. Work well in the induction.

Lily'smom. your kitchen is turning out so incredibly pretty. I love all the elements you are bringing together. I can't wait to see how all of this space intersects with the other rooms. It's pretty exciting to watch from here! :)

Are any of you planning to use any kind of area rugs in your kitchens? What kind and where do you place them?

I have two 3' x 5' and two 2' x 3' rugs in my kitchen. We are in a northern climate and enter the house via the garage, so I needed something to catch snow and mud.

The name says "silver", but these rugs are taupe.
Safavieh Palm Beach Silver Sisal Rug

I would like to add a cushioned mat by the prep island. I have back issues and if I spend the day cooking I'm guaranteed a sleepless night due to sciatica pain. I'm hopeful that a mat will help.

Oh, my! It's fantastic, especially with the shop vacation (lol). How long until it's move-in ready?

Love the keystone on your fireplace!

Cheryl - how big are your dogs? Proud GS mom here :)

Cheryl - how big are your dogs? Proud GS mom here :)

AHTs are typically 14-20 lbs, same size as a Rat Terrier. Oldbat2be, your GS is adorable. :)

Lily'smom, that's a cutie, too! I admire your calm and acceptance over the delays.

The kitchen is coming along great Lilysmom! The crystal with ORB will look lovely. I decided on crystal and chrome as I needed knobs on some lower ones for pantry and didn't want to sandwich chrome between brass. So chrome it is! I've been away for a few days and I'm pretty sure nothing happened in that time. Waiting on backsplash and cabinet guys have to do some minor trim and other issues. Almost done!

Your kitchens look beautiful! I would like some rugs in my kitchen but I have an old chihuahua (actually 2 of them) that pees on any rug on the floor. She finds something on the floor and pees on the side of it. I 'inherited' these dogs and it's making me crazy.

Smmm beautiful can't wait for your reveal!

lilysmom love that kitchen and space! Your moving forward! :) I see now where you are planning the OTR and now that I see it tell your DH to go to the MW in the pantry to heat his coffee hee hee :) love your adjacent room too. Going to be so nice when finished. Can't wait to see your new counters!

Lol

Keep working on him, Lilly'smom. An OTR microwave with air filter will not do the job of a true exhaust fan.

You certainly do have to pick your battles. It's going to be a lovely, fantastic kitchen regardless. :)

I am wishing I'd have broached the subject of toe kick drawers when we were planning our kitchen. I didn't because I thought I'd get shot down, and now the BF brings up that we should have. Yes, we definitely should have. They would have been so useful. Why didn't I say something?! SMH

I am procrastinating re: going outside to finish my stall chores, so I wandered in here. The kitchen (and pup) photos are gorgeous, oh my gosh!

I just changed to glass and ORB knobs on my off white upper cabinets. (I have glass/orb pulls on the lower drawers) and I love how they blend rather than stand out.

And lily'smom, we have the dreaded pop up downdraft with our induction. I think it works fine, but maybe that's because I'm not frying whole pigs coated in tumeric in my kitchen. So, don't worry about it, it's not as important as getting the correct knobs!

I can hardly wait to see your finished kitchens.

I asked for a toe kick drawer to store step stool and my cabinet maker advised against it. They said they are a pain to use and sometimes scrape against the floor depending on the type of floor.

Hmm, things to consider. I could ask. I think at this stage it'll be expensive. Still would be good to know.

Looks great! This is going to be such a pretty space. I'm so excited for you.

AHTs are typically 14-20 lbs, same size as a Rat Terrier.

They can be as small as 10 lbs like my girl. Height at withers should range from 12"-16". Mine is 12" high. That's all skin. No hair.

cpartist, she's adorable. I love her coloring.

I inquired about the cost of retrofitting toe kick drawers into 4 cabinets and this is the answer:

We need to stay within the sides of the individual boxes. It would severely stress the cabinets if you cut out the portion of the toe kick that bears the weight of everything above it. You're probably looking at least $600-800 in parts and fabrications and labor would be billed by the hour at $85/hr per hour. My guess is it could take up to three days to get things looking and operating perfectly..

What is entailed in this:
-removal of toe kick
-This is where the labor pricing kicks in, retrofitting drawer glides under the cabinets and it's a really tight space

-ensuring the drawers wont hit the floor at anytime, so more leveling needs to be done. This wont be discovered until everything is installed and a trial run is done. If the bottom of the drawer needs to be trimmed, it will look shorter than the toe kick next to it.

Definitely cost prohibitive.

Ladies! It's tile day, eeeeek!

Oh, my goodness! It's gorgeous! I'm so excited about your kitchen. Already I feel swamped with emotion when I see it, similar to how I feel about romy718's kitchen.

Wow! That's a huge compliment. I love Romy's kitchen! Thank you :)

Very exciting about your tile, smm! I don't recall seeing your eventual decision on where to stop your tile, so I look forward to being surprised when it's all done.

Here's where we stopped:

We have extra tile so if we eventually get rid of pool control we can prob continue to under the sconces.

Waiting on grout

Really pretty smm!

I really liked my tile without the grout, now I'm unsure. I'll let him finish but I feel like the grout took away from some of its beauty

Hmm? Did you just do white?

smm5525, I think you're going to love it once you're used to the new look with the grout.

It's a grayish white called Snow White. The thinset was called white but looked grayish too. I'm sure I just need to get used to it. It looks bluish grey vs white. The color of the tile definitely changed

Remember that grout will change color after it fully dries!

Oh the tile is so beautiful and I LOVE how it looks but I see what you're saying; from what you've shown, the darker contrast has more of a kick. Wonder if you could wipe it down really well to remove a little, and then grout with a darker grout?

Or - a quick search showed this - perhaps a good fix? I would highly recommend applying to a sample board before you apply to your actual grout.

Apply Enhancing Sealer

• Apply enhancing sealer to help darken the color of dry grout. Although it may never be as dark as it was before it dried, the sealer will help deepen the color and block stains. The most common grout sealers will not darken grout because they are formulated to dry invisibly. Check the label to be sure yours is an enhancing sealer.

  There are also lots of threads about applying a stain to the grout and wiping it off, to darken.

  Would you be willing to post a picture of the range wall with the tile grouted, for comparison?

  Your kitchen is GORGEOUS.

I'll have to take some more pics in the morning. The bright light casts all these dark shadows in the photos. I did have this one I took grouted but it's from far away

Here it is before grout

It's stunning! Love, love the rich wall of tile.

Thanks, it looks a lot better this morning! Things lightened up quite a bit!

Pretty tiles. I was wondering if maybe it was that the grout wasn't dry too. The other thing is maybe they appear more translucent without grout? Or if it was just seeing the tile a little less 3 D once the grout was filled in? Who knows but they look really pretty from your pics :)