When Martha's kitchen was featured in her magazine, it generated a number of posts on this Forum. Opinions were divided between "beautiful" and "depressing", with a few jokes thrown in about it reminding Martha of her prison days. And Martha did choose a white marble for counters and backsplash, and a white farmhouse sink, which lightened everything. So, I think you do have to be careful about grays in a kitchen and balancing the color so as not to go overboard and end up with it looking dreary - you will have to live with it every day, and while you may see gorgeous ones in magazines, it's another thing to create that look in your own home.

Martha Stewart's Gray Kitchen - click on pics to make them bigger

Colin Cowie's Gray Kitchen

(Grammabois - you should start a new thread with your question; your post does not really relate to this thread, and you will get more responses if you start a new thread about your knotty pine cabinets.)

Good luck with your project... our house is about the same age as yours and we are attempting to make the kitchen more functional and fit in more with the rest of the house.

I did gray/greenish with Caluctta marble. Here is the link to my butler's pantry.

We are doing a more blue/grey, and didn't know if these would be any help. The photos don't show the depth of color in these well -- in daylight they seem blue, but much softer than shows in the photos. At night, they are grey. The photos also do not show the slight distressing that we have done. If you would like, I will try and get a close-up of that to post.

Perimeter -- painted cabs w/soapstone tops.

Island - stained alder with marble top

Bottom drawer that actually pulls out to be step....

We did our old kitchen cabs a putty color (similar to BM Abingdon Putty) with soapstone counters and I loved it.

In our new (100 yr. old) house I am renovating our butler's pantry, and I want that "white" look again, but there is no white woodwork in the house, so I have chosen BM Coastal Fog.

I am so inspired by some of what I see here that I haven't seen in the past. (And I searched!)

We did our girls' bath cabs. a BM Aura color FLINT which is a deep blue-gray. I am thrilled with it, with all white tile (with dark grout), very pale warm gray walls (RH Ash). In our bath we did a combo of wood base cabs and the upper is white with a glaze and the end result is a soft gray.

Love it! Can't wait to read more when I have time later.

I like the picture with the grey lower cabinets and white uppers.

I agree on the taupes. I think some of them look "muddy" based on the BM paint chips I have, but perhaps you can make a shade work for you.

The second one is from a poster here who seems to not post anymore. He called it his Martha Stewart inspired kitchen. I think it's even better.

Good luck, your kitchen sounds gorgeous!

Kathe