It's always advised that people order extra tile to have on hand. Keep those tiles, as you never know when you might need them to make a repair. You will never get that same lot again.

Yes agree it makes sense to keep a few. But I have enough to do a backsplash that is 18 inches high by 10 feet long!

Can't wait to see the pics! That tile is beautiful!

Actually, sayde, you are allowed to say, "I won't take pics until the light is absolutely perfect."

Less acceptable is"I won't take pics until the grout has been applied even though I have already stated that the tile is not quite the color I anticipated and I am nonetheless thrilled with the outcome."

Hope the grouting goes perfectly and that we will get a gander tomorrow. Congrats and cheers. .

pics please!!?? I haven't been hanging out here as much since we finished our kitchen, but did I totally miss the unveiling of your Danby marble? I am still in love with mine. We have some etching but apparently I'm the only one who can see it (DH thinks I'm nuts!).

sharonite (fellow Danby lover)

It's been long enough Sayde. Can we please see the beautiful tile?

Cough it up!!

Sayde asked me to upload her photos as her computer isn't cooperating. After I run to Costco and pick up my long-awaited first CSA box of the season, I'll do that for her. They're worth the wait! Patience.....

Looking forward to seeing it! Thanks. (I have Walker Zanger Gramercy Park Bone China backsplash samples next to my still uninstalled cabinets. Can't wait to see how it looks in Sayde's kitchen.)

OK......Drum roll, please..... (I recommend you sit down for this.)

Range wall

Sink wall

Gooseberry pies!

And look at this gorgeous wall of butterfly prints. I think I want one too!

If you click on one of the last couple photos, it'll take you to her photobucket album where you can see some before photos also. Highly recommend seeing them.

Sayde, your kitchen is truly beautiful. The gumwood cabinets are unlike anything I've ever seen. They make me want to have unpainted cabs, and that's hard to do because I don't like wood cabs!

The details are amazing, from the hood to the tile. That's one stunning room! Thank you for showing it off!

Darn, I just noticed these pics are small and I can't find a way as a guest in her photobucket to make them bigger. Click on the one of the last few and you can see them bigger for yourself.

Breezy, thank you so much for posting. My MAC just keeps giving me the old beachball whenever I try to move anything out of Photobucket -- clearly needs to be updated.
I so appreciate your taking the time to do this for me!

So pretty, Sayde! You and your DH did a wonderful job. The butterfly prints look great. Everything does!

Gorgeous! The backsplash makes everything in your already wonderful kitchen come together in the homiest and most beautiful of ways.

May I ask what color grout you used? It is perfect for your tiles.

Sayde, it's beautiful! I love everything--your cabs, floor, sink, BS, marble, doorway, butterfly pics--so comfortable and welcoming! I'm sure you're going to love working in your new kitchen for many years to come; thanks so much for sharing!

Thanks all for your comments!

Francoise, the grout color is "Summer Wheat." I think it is Tec. Since you're planning on using the WZ G Park in Bone China you may want to check out MamaDadaPaige's kitchen -- she used the same tile with light grout.

Sayde - Wonderful rescue of old, beautiful cabinetry. It was a great kitchen & you have taken the beauty of what was there and made it much more functional. Bravo. I hope you inspire others to not always default to tearing everything out when you have good quality materials.

Dear Sayde, Thanks for the info about the grout. And thanks for the reminder about Mamadadpaige's kitchen. It is one of my main inspirations - and one of the main reasons I chose my cabinets. But I had forgotten that she used WZ tile. The WZ G Park in Bone China also seems to look good with my F & B Wimborne white painted cabinets. Certainly it looks great with Mamadadapaige's cabinets.

(The Walker Zanger salespeople at my local Walker Zanger in Perth Amboy, NJ are, for the record, adorably helpful.)

Looks wonderful. Worth the wait.

Did you save us some pie?

Where do you live???? I freakin love that tile!!!!

Wow, your before kitchen was very nice, but the after is spectacular! Love the marble and tile. It oozes elegance and charm at the same time. Congratulations and enjoy!!

I love your kitchen! You've done a beautiful job. It flows so well with the rest of your lovely home! Bon Apetite!

It's been a long journey. Hopefully you are satisfied with the final route you chose because it is hard to imagine a better outcome. It looks like a space where some great cooking will happen.

Thank you so much!!!! Everyone!!!

Joy, I live in upstate NY -- that's why all the gumwood -- used a lot here, not too much anywhere else.

Just want to thank so many people who have helped,cheered, listened to my pain, and inspired along the way, both on this forum (Rhome, Eliz, Breezy, grnyesect, staceyneil,Marthavila,Buffalotina,Erika,MDP, Homechef, Ginny, and so many others) -- and other inspirations --Axel Vervoordt (the floor), Keith McNally's kitchen (the tile and overall feel),Arlosmom (the hood), the architecture student who just showed up on my front walk one morning with his notebook and camera, and told me all about Leander McCord, and especially, especially, my DH who did it all (and is still working on it! Stay tuned for the island.)

Very nice. I love the soft feel of the subways with
the rich golden brown of the cabinetry.
~boxer

I get some credit for that wonderful hood?!? Yea!! I just drooled over your photos. I absolutely love what you've done with your kitchen. I love that you saved your original cabinets, only you made them better than they ever were. I love your backsplash tiles...they're perfect. Your marble looks so warm and inviting with the gumwood cabinets. Love the enormous sink window. And the hood...I was admiring your hood details and now you give me a call out? Made my day.

Your kitchen is one of my all time favorites. There is not a single detail that I would change if it were my own. I hope you love cooking in it every day for years to come. Bravo.

If i lived closer I'd be interested in your tile. That's what I originally wanted, but am settling on the cheap stock 3x6 stuff. I need more than 15 sq ft but I could get creative....

LOVE your kitchen. Love your whole house in fact. Thanks for sharing.

Sayde, I remember some of the threads when you were selecting your bluestar & marble and it is SO exciting to see all your final choices come together so beautifully. I especially love your marble counters with the warmth of your cabinetry. Congratulations on your gorgeous new (old) kitchen!!

Glad I was warned to sit down. THat is a stunning kitchen. Quite amazing actually, without looking over the top glitzy. Quietly elegant. Wow. Thanks for sharing.

Absolutely stunning kitchen :) What I love most about it is the floor. I'm drooling. Congrats!

Thank you all so much for your comments! Those of you who have been on here for a while know it has been a long road and I have had so much support along the way from so many of you. When I was thanking people above I neglected to mention: Allison, Rococogurl (also long time GW'ers), as well as some folks who are not around her much anymore -- Erika, Pluckymama -- remember them? I'm sure I'm still omitting people. Have learned so much here-- for all the troubles and mistakes we made I think of all the things I learned here and problems we avoided. And that goes for the Appliances forum too! There are some dudes on there who are quite outspoken but really told me what I needed to know!

The intention for the kitchen feels like it followed a curve from wanting to keep the house "original", to wanting to have a white kitchen (that was a two year digression), then returning to keeping the house and the gumwood but trying to bring more brightness into the room. I feel like I could write a book! Thank you all again for so much wonderful support, especially in those times when things were falling apart.

You achieved exactly the look you were going for. I love the warm, cozy but elegant feel of it. It's beautiful! Kudos to your DH. Can't wait to see the island!

I am so glad that breezygirl stole your thunder, sayde; some of us were experiencing your Mac malfunction as a kind of protracted water torture, but didn't want to ask.

Now that it is reveal, sublime is the only adjective that comes close.

As much as you rightly credit all the people who inspired you, I think you need to "pay it forward" by explicitly explaining your House Whisperer modus operandi. Through all kinds of travails and with a continuing array of wonderful models and counsel, you managed to maintain focus on what you understood your kitchen could be. I suspect that approach will produce less exquisite results in a less handsomely endowed space. Nonetheless, every space can benefit from being so perfectly "listened to" before anyone so much as thinks about foisting even the most finished-to-the-nines other model of kitchen into it.

Now all you have to do is break down "intuit" into a series of left-brained steps that any of us could follow.

Congratulations and cheers.

PS. If that is Coalport Countryware I spy in your glazed cupboards, we have the same china. That being that case, I am pretty sure you are obligated to let me stay in your house whenever you go on vacation.

honorbiltkit, you are very kind. You're right that I had the amazing 80 year old gumwood cabinets, and also a DH who really wanted to "save" them and make the kitchen over. Could never have done it otherwise. The serendipity of meeting that architecture student at the precise moment when I was about to start picking materials was major. Because of that chance meeting I got to see another Tudor revival house -- much grander and more detailed than mine -- that had been restored by a couple with very deep pockets. They could have done anything. They could have expanded the little kitchen but they honored the house and kept the footprint. They found floor tiles in the pantry and had them copied exactly for the kitchen. Throughout the house they had things created that were exactly like what had already been there -- from trim to gargoyles to windows. Even the new build carriage house used exactly the same materials and design elements. I was just amazed at how respectful they were.

I could not, and did not want to emulate that approach with as much orthodoxy as they did, (what one of the Bungalow books calls "obsessive restoration") but I had a glimpse of what was possible. Of course, at the same time I have many books and files and folders filled with pictures and information about materials that I had been collecting for years-- just like many serious GW TKO'ers. And I have had a long history in this house. The kitchen is actually the last part of the house to be "done." So by the time we got to the kitchen the house had a color and design palette into which the kitchen would fit.

Yes, that is Coalport Countryware and I would love to have you come visit. Where are you, anyway????

Sayde, it's masterful. I feel a twinge of sadness looking at the cabinets, they look like old, old ones in my father's lab that were renovated away when I was young. I spent a lot of happy hours pouring water from one teensy beaker into another, rummaging through those cabinets. I am so happy to see them living... and breathing, just like honorbiltkit implies. You listen enough and you breathe breath back in.

Aliris, thank you for your comment.

Our house was built in 1927 and we bought it in 1977 from the estate of the original owners/builders. It was unusual even then to see a house that had not been updated. So much of the gumwood was painted or gone from the other houses all around us by that time. r

I can understand why people take out old cabinets -- they are idiosyncratic (our uppers are only 11 inches above the counters), they get dinged, they warp (especially those really tall upper doors). We have lived and continue to live with all these little things -- we try to think of it as "patina."

We could never have afforded to have these restored. It was my DH's full time "retirement" project for over a year.

I have to admit there was a time when I did consider a white kitchen. I love white kitchens. But at the point when I was ready to pull the trigger I could not sleep, and, candidly, I had some pretty vehement protests from my family about the prospect of taking out the gumwood--- although at that time I had absolutely no idea how I could possibly keep the gumwood cabinets and still renovate the kitchen. But once I stepped back from the white kitchen plan I could feel my intense anxiety subsiding, and I started sleeping again. This was mid 2009. Over many months my DH and I started to think through a new plan. We're totally amateurs, but we had plenty of time. It was a fabulous collaboration -- I drew and designed, he did all the work!

The kitchen is far from perfect. You can see the faint ghost of the old latch marks on the doors that were moved from the uppers to the lowers. We try to "embrace" things like the warped doors, the "character" marks. The layout is fine but it is not as optimized as it could have been if we had been starting with a clean slate. We did what we could to make it as good as we could, but there are still all those little "imperfections". On balance, though, we are truly happy with how it turned out.

I just love this kitchen, am downright grateful to you for salvaging those cabinets! Beautiful floor, reminds me of Pewabic tiles, my favorite tile place!
Lynn