I haven't been here in a while, I have missed seeing and hearing about all the new kitchens! I thought I would post an update, now that we have lived with our kitchen for over a year. I really love my two tone cabinets, the cherry base cabinets are warm and inviting and the mushroom wall cabinets keep the kitchen from being too dark. After all the angst of the decision, I am so glad I went with the solid wall of cabinets. And I am still in awe of my granite, do not for one single second regret the money spent on it! We ended up doing a stacked beige subway tile for the backsplash, with a herringbone pattern behind the range and I am very happy with my choice. As for appliances, I still love my microwave drawer, I use it every day and the only complaint I have is that the panel doesn't light up well. And I absolutely adore my fridge, love it so much we got the same one for my son! The produce drawer is still my favorite feature, and the ice maker my least favorite. We have never run out of ice, but we are a small family and when we have company, we always use bagged ice. But I can see this being an issue for a larger family without a second fridge with ice maker. I am very happy with my Bosch dishwasher, it does a great job and I've never had the goop issue some were having when I bought mine. The big miss in my kitchen is the range, I should have gone with induction. And I really dislike the surface of my range, it is a pain to keep clean, I miss the ease of my Thermador cooktop. And if I had it to do over again, I would have done drawers in the two base cabinets that don't have them. I still cannot believe how much more organized my kitchen is because of the drawer bases! I had a hard time wrapping my brain around how they would function for me, but after living with my kitchen for a year, I would do an all drawer kitchen in a heartbeat. Overall, I am so grateful to have a kitchen that is both functional and beautiful, and I so appreciate all the advice and encouragement I got from this forum!

... and don't forget fancy! lol I agree about the blue. I went to Anthropologie today to look at some of those little accessories (jars, sugar bowl, etc) in yellow and aqua and brought the blue bird fabric. Most of them worked well but some of them were too green. It's a pretty blue. I don't think I'll do any other fabrics with turquoise- just if I find a good blue like the birds. It's sooo cute. I love it! My mom loves it too and agrees these work better than the original yellow/black/grey ones. Other ones I showed her she said were too french/formal. She has a good eye for decorating : ) The little bird fabric might be busy for the 6' window but that's why I thought maybe for the lights and then white with a bit of yellow (maybe the pom poms) for the window. I get the dandelions tomorrow (fabric) in the turquoise and girly blue. I think the print is too large though compared to those cute little birds. Maybe in the DR though if I do pillows. We'll see! I liked the tile even more today. They gave me 4 to take home woo-hoo!

Yeppers.... IKEA boxes with solid QS oak slab fronts from Scherrs. We went with the Premium cause it had the most flecking and I just found it so funky it was worth the upcharge to me. Thanks again for all the awesome compliments. DH is enjoying them as much as I am. OH... and he wanted to make sure I mentioned that he did most of the work... :-)

Ok. Some thoughts! -I would absolutely go to the KD who helped with your kitchen in the first place. -if you do cabinets they should match the lowers (because you already have an island in a different color) and hopefully fill the whole space so there is no gap between the cabinets and the backsplash and no wall showing. If there are gap areas you can paint them the color of the stone to make them disappear. -3 ideas about the hood: 1) cabinet looking material and color. this is what I meant about looking like "one unit." I like how they all touch and match. Imagine these in your cab color. I would definitely do glass front To echo the windows . In this case I think you could wrap the hood in the band of reclaimed wood like this 2) metallic. You could pick up some of the metal accents in the room, probably black. Apparently one thing people do is have a carpenter make the hood and have a painter paint it to look like the metal. yours would look great with zinc or antique bronze treatment and glass cabinets to match your lower cabinets on each side 3) you may find that you like your hood as it is (I do!) a lot more with cabinets next to it! If you are definitely doing cabinets this may be an option