Main body of our kitchen is 13' x 8'. What we are planning to do is take down the wall behind the wall ovens, which opens up to an empty butler's pantry, and take the next wall down which opens into the formal dining room. This will expand the kitchen footprint to 13' x 14'.

Looking into the B Pantry on the left

Good luck! Do you have a kitchen layout?

As of today only a general idea. We have gone to HD (no doubt a bad thing on this forum), and spent $49 and are waiting to have kitchen measured. We will sit down with their designer after that, since we are initially leaning toward Marthaq Stewart cabinets. However, we are thinking we can use the general guidelines we get from the measurer to take out the project to bid. We are also meeting a contractor tomorrow.

This is our Inspiration Kitchen. Ours will be a mirror image, but we are looking at redoing the windows on the outer wall, no uppers. A 30' GE Monogram DF range we got at a steal, and wall cabinets opposite the U shaped kitchen.

Exciting and great to have an inspiration kitchen! We will be watching and helping you answer your questions as you go along!

Very exciting! Looks like big changes are coming. Love your inspiration pic.

Our kitchen is 13'x13'--we stayed within the original floor space when we reno'd ours (with the exception of a few inches of tabletop at the end of the island, and one counter stool). It's not huge, but you can definitely do a lot in that size space! :)

Your inspiration pic is very pretty!

We have just booked an appointment with a designer for our kitchen. That will happen next week. Both my wife and I work, so we had to schedule it during an evening or the weekend. So we will have been right at 4 weeks when we get to sit down with the designer once we started this process. I am begiining to run a timeline in my head that it will be late May earliest before it is all done.

Congrats Whit,
I love your inspiration photo and the Martha line does fit that look perfectly. I normally just lurk here, but I came out of hiding to give you a heads up.

I am a KD at Home Depot (where Martha Stewart cabinets are from), and we have been having some troubles with the construction of the cabinets. The standard construction(engineered wood) cabinets have been giving our contractors a lot of problems (like falling off the wall kind of problems). If you decide to stay with Martha I think it is imparitive to upgrade to the All Plywood Construction (the sides stay the same thickness as the standard side- 3/8", but we haven't had nearly as many problems).

I am not normally an "All Plywood, All the Time" advocate, but if you are looking to stay in a similar price range, look at American Woodmark in the standard construction (they have 1/2" sides)or Kraftmaid (thicker sides and deeper drawers). Ask your KD their opinion, you can get really similar looks from the other companies. Hope you find something awesome.

Thanks, pghkate. Great stuff to know going in to our meeting Saturday. I'll post my experience. We are meeting with our plumber and electrician afterwards. I will admit to being nervous...

I will say that you will get better design help here in the kitchen forum than you will get at home depot.

Can you mock up a layout on graph paper?

Home depot may not be willing to give you drawings.

I will submit something for a layout tomorrow. We met with the designer at HD yesterday. She was really helpful and knowledgable, however, really didn't bring anything to the table except costs, which HD keeps very close to the chest.

So this is what we found out for plywood Martha Stewart Ox Hill in Picket fence; $14,200 for cabinets, and $4,000 for Carrara Marble honed. No uppers, 8 base cabinets in a small U and 5 wall cabinets. We knew it would be high, but this is about $5K higher than expected. And more than we can finance/pay for.

Still, I am not saying it is too much, but just more than we anticipated. So we are asking to repriice with discounts and specials just for the U shape cabinets, get them ordered. We will store them for 3-5 months while we save/pay down enough to go for the marble. W are hoping that maybe we can find good, but better cabinets to bring the price down. The marble we do not think we will get much below the quoted $62/sqft. Wall units and Advantium oven will come later.

It spreads out our remodel, but let's us get what we really want.

I have to set up a picture management account since I can't publish pdf files. Sorry no pics for a bit.

After visiting fabricators, cabinet companies, big box, small box, we made a decision to go with HD last night. They were able to come up with a lot of savings either as discounts, free cabinets, free services, etc. We are going with Martha Stewart (all plywood construction), Ox Hill style in white picket fence, carrara marble (yes, we know all about it). I had been expecting 6-8 weeks on the cabs. I am told more like 4-6, and could even be as early as 3 weeks. Not holding my breath.

There is so much to do. I am now stressing, not really because of the money, but because of all the work I have to do to be ready for the cabs and counters. They're the end pf the process.

Demo. Electrical (we have a lot of knob&tube). Minor plumbing. Ordering Advantium oven. Finding right sink at right price. New hardwood floor. Lighting. Sheet rocking. Tiling. I would much rather be on my bike.

True progress. I won't say nearly done, but the major work is done. New wiring, new plumbing, new ceiling, half the walls are redone, new lighting is in, new hardwood flooring is in, cabinets are in, appliances (except the Advantium oven which comes in today) are in, the counter guy came yesterday to measure for our marble. We are under four pages on our punch list. Cost to date has been north of $20K, but under $25K.

Looking good, how exciting! I'd love to hear how you like the Advantium when you finally get to use it. Mine arrives Friday, probably will be installed may 14 or 15. Couldn't pass up the 10% sale, so it will live on the floor with the hood for a bit.

Keep us posted! I love seeing how all the kitchens progress.

I put the GE Advantium in last night. All in all it took about 2 hours. The longest part was prepping the space; I had to cut the hole wider, install bracing and front spacer. Installation instructions were great, and there is almost nothing to it. I just had to cook something, so I had a little snack and warmed up a slice of pizza in the microwave. It was after 9 pm, so I didn't want to figure out anything other than that.

Just got back from the stone yard. Picked our two slabs of carrara. No pits in either. From the same slab in sequence to each other. They are "book-ends" so they have the one large vein in opposite corners, which supposedly makes the fabricating easier to get a good looking match. There is a small vein that runs straight up for about 2 feet in each slab. I checked it and could not feel anything with my hand or finger nail, so it should be OK. For someone like me, it was not noticeable at first.

Looks fantastic! Love, love the marble.

Beautiful marble, and the kitchen looks like it's coming along nicely!