I knew that I wanted a "white" kitchen as well. Once that was decided then we went and picked the granite and then picked the white that would go with the granite. Our granite is giallo ornamentale and our cabinets are a custom-mix to go with it - quite a creamy colour.

Yes, definitely pick out your granite first if you are picky. Otherwise you may end up with white cabs in a cool tone, with granite that you love in warm tone.

Ditto senator's reply. Pick out your counter top first. I already painted my cabs thinking "white is white" only to find I truly wanted marble but my cabs were too creamy looking for the white in marble. So I had to settle for a counter top.

I agree 100%. Granite first....then cabinet color. Like you, I went to the granite yard (actually several....several times!) and finally found the slab I liked best. I'd always thought we'd get bright white cabinets, but when I found the granite, I made a quick call to my cabinet maker and was relieved to hear that he hadn't started to paint them yet! We decided on an off-white, that will look much better w/ the granite. It would have been much harder to have to start all over with the granite search!

Same here. I don't post often but have been gathering lots of ideas. We picked the cabinets first - cream with a "fawn" inset instead of the chocolate. My favorite granite is the giallo ornamental but everyone else has picked granite with gold tones in it. I'm "quieter" so will probably go with GO.

Ok, my opinion differs from the others above. Pick out the different colors of white cabinet door samples you like & borrow them when you go to the stone yard. Then when you find the different granites you like, rest the cabinet samples against it all in a line, take a step back and see what you think of the combinations. Once you've decided which granite & which color white cabinet then you can coordinate backsplash color with the cabinet & granite samples.

We really liked white cab with pewter glaze & the off-white cabs with chocolate or coffee glaze. I was leaning toward the off-white ones. We also knew we wanted a dark stained island--either cherry, merlot or espresso. I thought I wanted a very uniform patterned granite like New Venetian Gold or Giallo Ornamental. When we got to the stoneyard however, I was drawn to a totally non-uniform granite. By process of elimination, we worked out that the merlot stained cabs went best with that granite for the island. The white cabs looked ok with that granite but it didn't really 'pop', so we took all our samples around the yard some more and found a dark granite we liked that coordinated well with the white cabs as well as the stained cabs and the other granite. Then it was just a matter of which color white and which glaze. Again, resting the cab samples against the granite slabs helped tremendously and we ended up selecting the white cab with pewter glaze. If we hadn't done it this way, I know we would have taken MUCH longer to make our decisions, there would have been alot more running around between cab place and granite place, we would have second-guessed ourselves much more and I probably would have gotten heat stroke in the stoneyard (it was the middle of June).

Just my $0.02 based my experience with the white kitchen...

Hope this helps!

mydreamhome has given you good advice. That being said, as an interior designer, I will tell you that you need to keep an open mind. I start my clients with choosing the granite because it is easier to match cabinets to the granite then granite to the cabinets. However, if you definitely want white cabinets and are not flexible, then you may be eliminating some gorgeous granite choices. Most people visit several granite yards and return to the yards where they saw the slabs they liked best. You need to choose your exact slabs - do not choose from a sample display. You want to make sure that the yard has enough slabs from the same lot.
As you view more granite slabs, your taste may evolve. Do you like speckled granite which is uniform or a more varied pattern? Do you like granite with movement? As you see more slabs, you will get a feeling for what you like. What is your budget? Blues are very expensive. Do you want something common or something out of the ordinary? Is the granite the focal point of your kitchen? Do you want to continue the granite up the wall for the backsplash? Most granite yards have websites so I would look at the websites. If you don't know what yards you will visit you can look at stone surfaces in East Rutherford, NJ website, European in Jamesburg, NJ , Dente in Cedar Grove, NJ,& OHM in Monroe NJ. These websites have beautiful pictures of their granite inventory which may help you get an idea of what you like.