If that is your biggest screw up, you are lucky. I have regretted many of my decisions. I don't think choosing a bead is a big deal at all. That is not going to make the cabinets look "fancy." A bead is a classic look. I think they will look great.

To me, the picture does look like honed AB granite.

Kelleg,

You are very nice -- I think the bead is pretty big (I don't think our builder provides the nicest cabinets - see link below except ours are bright white) -- I am already thinking if I can get a carpenter to get rid of them? I have officially gone off the deep end and cannot wait until this process is over :) I thought I was building my dream kitchen -- but I am way more analytical -- design is not more forte -- so I am starting to temper my expectations now...I would much rather be pleasantly surprised then disappointed! Thanks for listening...well, reading :)

Here is a link that might be useful: With A Bead

OK, just a thought to look into. A client of mine ordered cabinets and decided they liked the back detail of the doors better than the front. In their case the back had bead board detail. They asked the cabinet guys to turn them around. Turned out great! Now they have what you have instead of what you want. Don't know if it would work for you but it's worth an ask.

Really, truly, your door looks great. Getting the bead was a great idea.

You have gone off the deep end, but if it's any consolation, a lot of us have been there. I still ask my family if I made the right choice on certain things-- well really, I only ask the six-year-old, because every one else in the family has had it with my kitchen obsession. I guess I haven't stooped so low as to start talking kitchen to the dog-- yet.

The bead on the linked cabinets looks nice. I understand you don't like it, but it doesn't jump out at you. If it's truly too late to stop the order & modify it, then as you pick the other elements of your kitchen try to draw attention to them and distract from the cabinets. I.e., choose elements that let the cabinets fade into the background and let those other elements shine. Maybe a detailed BS or intricate countertop. Maybe a spectacular range & custom hood that becomes the star... There are many ways to minimize elements you don't like.

As to the countertop...it might be honed AB, but it might also be a black laminate or a honed quartz.

If you like the black & white look, you might not be happy w/a green soapstone...can you look at other stoneyards? Someone else in your area may have a true black soapstone.

Did you say you picked a large bead? That seems kinda cool. Not busy. I think you'll like it.

Morton5... may I please have your six year olds number. I'll pay... :)

Wow. I actually LIKE that door! Although, my cabinets are very, very fancy compared to that - and here I was thinking I had a classic, simple almost boring kitchen except for the big splash I made with my modern, quirky backsplash that says "ME" in a way that my ex-designer verbally abused me for!

Trust your instincts, but to be safe, sleep a night or two on major decisions. (And do NOT let this project drive you nuts!)

It may or may not be of interest to you to check out Caesarstone Raven in either polished (what I have) or honed - much more subdued, although I believe others have said it may be more maintenance. There are a lot of threads about it on GW.

I mention this product bc I started out wanting Pietra Cardosa, then moved to soapstone (and like you didn't want the green of it, but found the blacker variety reminded me of my high school science lab...), then tried to like AB granite in a variety of finishes and then fell hard for the Raven. I still love it after living with it for almost a year (more than the granite on my island, which is etched to heck and back!).

Here's a pic of my kitchen if it's helpful.

and a closeup of the Raven

Best wishes to you for a low-stress project and an end result you love!

Hey, I'm a pretty plain Jane myself and am not just saying this to be nice -- I don't think those doors are fancy or fussy at all. They're still pretty simple. Get simple hardware and a simple faucet, and you'll be fine. Your choice is not nearly as fancy as the furniture-type styles with scrolling and turned legs. I bet you will like that bead when you get the whole kitchen in and all is complete.

Have you taken a look at Virginia Mist or Jet Mist granite? The samples I've seen here are beautiful. It's not plain black like a plain black soapstone, but it's not as dramatic as a very veiny black and white soapstone...somewhere in the middle...the word mist is just right in describing it. It might still be too much for your tastes, but do take a look.

Know your stress. I have been making the kitchen decisions with a short time restraint. Many of the times, I committed to one before I felt sure, then I would go back and think it over again, and again... Like wood or painted cabinets, cream or white paint, stainless or white fridge (I actually like white, DH stainless...I'm going to miss the magnets!) What helped me was that sometime when I thought I had regretted something (like committing to undermount sink and thinking I really want a farm house type because I like to lean and want the reach to be close.), I realize there was another factor which led me to that decision and it was still valid. For the sink, for instance, my aisle is narrow, so maybe the sink is best undermount.
So, what made you choose the bead board at the last minute? Maybe you were wanting to experiment a little, when normally you are safe with design. It isn't so outrageously different from the other style and maybe you will come to like it.
Finally, I think it helps to ask myself if I do not like it, what can I do down the road to change it? Often there are solutions.
Jennsb mentioned flipping the door panel. I know my doors are a raised panel on the inside and flat on the out... but it is not the classic door with the corner seam, so I do not know if all doors are made to be flipped. Maybe just mention it to the cabinet maker that you are having second thoughts now about the bead board.
As far as the countertop, I LOVE the look of marble (but had worries and other issues with it), did not want the starker contrast of black granite, and was thinking of a grey. Then when I saw smarge's kitchen, I just knew that the ceasarstone would work for me. (And what a relief!) My DH and I had seen it at a kitchen showroom, but it kind of sealed the deal when I could see it with cabinets similar to mine, and in such a beautiful kitchen! Thank you smarge for sharing your pictures.
As for a darker countertop, black soapstone is something I looked at and even liked the idea that it could be oiled or not. I also considered a darker grey-black granite called Andes Black which I think was beautiful for more contrast which it sounds like you are looking for.
Yeah! I am analytical (or obsessive or something) too.. Good luck.

I like things plain. In my previous kitchen remodel, I chose a cabinet similar to yours with a simple bead. For our new house, I chose the plain shaker like you prefer. In my case, I wish I'd gotten the bead again. It gave the cabinets just a little style that, in retrospect, I've found that I prefer.

Is there any way to slow down your project's timeline? It sounds like you might need some breathing space. I second guessed myself on EVERYTHING, and if we hadn't been in control of the schedule, I think I'd have gone nuts!

Anne

The bead is just a baby step toward classic from the starting point of absolute simplicity. Not even on the same planet as fancy. The detail whispers rather than shouts & adds dimension/depth/texture to the whole. Think of white piping edging a white cushion or tiny shell buttons fastening a simple white dress...

Isolating one component from the total picture can be jarring. The spotlight effect of seeing one white cabinet on its lonesome at the shop may be what startled you. It was out of context. The same cabinent will look different grouped in your kitchen. Then you'll see the faint shadows of white - the tone-on-tone - of the bead contours. One white dove standing alone reads differently than a line of doves...

One of the beauties of a white kitchen is the way light plays off the surfaces into the room. Unless you are a purist minimalist in the rest of your home, I imagine you'll have beaded moldings around doors & windows & baseboards in your rooms, as is traditional with many elemens. The bead of the cabinets will tie in pleasingly. I think a kitchen shows a rhythm of surfaces flowing together more than any other room...

Still half-dreamy this morning, please pardon all my ... ! Your crisis of confidence is more meaningful than the bead detail of your cabinets. Don't make any more decisions until you resolve that. Take the time to explore what will please you most on an emotional level. It's easy to spot what we don't like but often difficult to define what we do, let alone why. "Inspiration" kitchen photos often help nudge you along in finding your style. You look at one & you really like this about it but not that. Look at another & you'll see you could replace the aspect you don't like in the first with an element from the second that you do. Along the way you'll begin to see the total space you're envisioning in your imagination. Once you have the big picture of how you want the space to feel & flow, then you can evaluate each choice in the context of your vision. If you start with the elements themselves (cabinets, countertops), it can prove much harder to assemble the big picture. Like picking your shoes before your dress - unless snazzy shoes throb your heart!

If you keep your total vision in heart & mind, you can evaluate the components by what each contributes to the whole much more easily. You want your dream kitchen to welcome you at any hour like the face of one you love. Find your vision & your confidence will return.

Smarge, I normally don't like mosaic pictures in kitchens, BUT yours is absolutely lovely. I LOVE what it does for your kitchen. Applause to you for sticking to your guns despite the verbal abuse! That mosaic feels so fun and airy and cheerful. It reminds me a lazy, warm summer day when all the world is right :-) - at least that's the feeling it brings up in me.

Rdas - try hard not to stress, you may end up pleasantly suprised. Let me give you an example. 3 summers ago, on vacation, I bought a knee length, flowey black skirt with white flowers. I didn't wear it for 2 years. it felt frumpy. I asked my husband several times, what was I thinking buying that thing. He even agreed it wasn't very flattering. This summer, I found it again in my closet along with a fun black blouse I'd forgotten I had. I tried it on and oh my gosh....I LOVE IT. My husband loves it. Every time I wear I it, I feel so sexy and beautiful. It's like the shirt was made for it, the perfect poofiness, the perfect length! And my husband can't keep his hands off me when I wear it. It's my fav. outfit now.

So, just like some time and that shirt (that backsplash, that granite, whatever) worked wonders, it can happen that way with your kitchen too.

Sometimes the things you think you hate the most end up being your favorite, especially within a great combination.

So rest...and wait and see.....worry then, but now is too early to waste another day worrying! This may turn out fabulous for you.

Vasue, you sound like a poetic kitchen counselor! Guess I can use some of your advice too...So well put.."tiny shell buttons fastening a simple white dress" Now that is a way to describe an element of a kitchen! Really, sometimes I think it is easy to get caught up in our heads so to speak about a kitchen remodel and in the end it really is about how we want our kitchen to feel, like what needsometips08 said about smarges kitchen mosaic bringing up some feelings..of summer, I think she wrote. One of my early posts where I was stressing someone said to breathe. That helped. The test probably mentioned on the "new to GW link" helped me to get back to how I want my kitchen to feel. When I see pictures of some kitchens, they are like hearing a favorite song. I am just now starting to be able to pick out of the pictures what elements I love.

The test I was referring to was the Sweeby test. You can search it on the GW kitchen site.

Oh my gosh, I feel SO much better! I have literally been holding that in for a week -- my DH is so sick of hearing about the cabinets! The bead seems huge to me right now, I am hoping you all are right and this is not that big of a deal! Smarge, I love your cabinets -- very classy, but simple!

I am the type of person that buys the whole outfit off the manequin -- I am not the girl that is creative to put new things together -- so this is h*ll for me!

Thanks for talking me off the ledget -- what is the Sweeby test???

OH MY GOSH we have all been there. I am building a new house and when i tell you i think my KD and tile guy must hate me by now-- i've changed my mind so many times... but in the end i'm happy with "most" of my decisions... like my hubby says it will look beautiful and if there are one or two things we dont like, well we'll save and fix it... life is too short and thank god for health and friends/family...

PS I changed my bathroom tile the other day and the tile guy said "isnt that the first tile you had picked" oops it was... lol...

Dont sweat it - we all second guess and panic--- especially when we know "its too late to change it!"

Trying to send a link to Sweeby test:

http://starpoohonline.com/wordpress/2007/07/31/the-sweeby-test/#more-6

I think it will look great adds an extra shadow line detail to the doors

smarge: love the backsplash, kitchen looks wonderful

vasue: "One white dove standing alone reads differently than a line of doves..." your words are like " zen : design words of wisdom"
do you teach yoga or are you smoking something and can I have some :)
could I consult with you on how to calm the nervous client? I think my blood pressure went down just reading your post
thanks

rdas,

I love the look of your cabinets. And here's the deal: I have very plain shakers (no bead) and they do have a tendency to collect dust on that flat sticking faster than any cabs I've ever had. So you can consider your beads a good practical as well as aesthetic decision.

And they are quite simple and classic, really - don't worry, you've sucessfully avoided the Faux-Tuscan Monstrosity bullet!

rdas,
I have shaker cream color doors with the same bead as yours. I'm so happy with them and don't think it looks fussy at all. I orginally wanted just the straight edge, kd said it would be tough to keep clean, the bead is so easy. Nothing gets caught in it.

Here are some photos, you can click on the album for more. Kitchen is not done yet, but getting there.

Rdas, sounds like you just need a couple of hours with a kitchen designer-- it would be money well spent and the right one can help you make all these little decisions without going crazy!

Rdas,

First off I love what you chose. And I believe I am the
QUEEN of Plain Jane. In fact I should be named Jane Plain.
Or at least be voted the President of plain janes
worldwide.

You are not alone. There are countless times I look at
various things in my house and ask my self "What were you
thinking?" or "Are you a flake? Why did you paint that or
buy that or do that???"

Lucky for me I make mistakes all the time. Being a Plain
Jane it is easy to do and therefore I can not find just
one mistake. You have the good fortune to have only one
mistake. I have thousands.

You truly do have company in worrying if you made the
right choice on something. Your cabinets are beautiful and
maybe if you can not change them you will fall in love
with them and say to yourself. "Why didn't I like these?"
I truly hope this
cheers you up.

~Boxerpups

I love those doors. I think you made a GREAT choice.

Your cabinets are similar to mine also -- and I like the bead. I really didn't care that much one way or another as far as the look went, but I agree that the angled edge of the bead makes it easier to keep them clean. Anything that lands on them has a slope to slide off of rather than a little ledge to sit on and things are less likely to get shoved into the groove along the back. You may find the paint finish lasts longer too without a hard egdge to get dinged.

They are still pretty plain -- just softened, and in some respects, softened is plainer that hard lined and edgy. Does that make any sense? ;-) BTW, I like the absoultely plain shaker style best in a wood finish and a very simple arts & crafts or slightly contemporary kitchen.

As far as your counter choice goes, I would keep looking until you find something that calls to you. I'm not hearing that you love the soapstone but you are afraid you might tire of the green. I am hearing the only soapstone they have at this place has green and I don't think I'm going to love it. There is a huge difference. Keep looking. Don't rush.

You didn't screw up at all. You're still officially a member of the plain Jane club. Nothing wrong with being a little less plain ;-). You chose the bead because you liked it better than the plain. Maybe if you had chosen the plain you might have wished you had chosen the bead in hindsight. Neither choice is right or wrong. I like the bead too. Adds a bit of interest and it's hardly over the top. Honed AB and soapstone require a fair amount of maintenance. Maybe choose a quartz counter as it's less shiny than polished granite, but still no sealing or maintenance worries. A granite with a leather, or slightly textured antique finish will not have a lot of the worries of a honed surface or the fingerprint issued of a polished dark granite.

Sorry to hijack the thread...

smarge: where did you find your backsplash?...it's absolutely awesome.

I think your cabinet choice is lovely. It's the same as mine! I have to laugh, because when I first read your entry I thought you meant a bead-board panel. And yes, that is a different look. But when I realized you meant the quarter-round sticking, well, that's such a subtle difference. I think it will be one of those things that you've fretted about now, but will be long forgotten once your kitchen is complete.

I'm also in search of a matte black countertop. I saw an AB antiqued slab the other day which looked very nice. It didn't have the same fingerprinting issue as the honed, but wasn't quite as "rocky" looking as the Cambrian Black Antique. Definitely simple!

As a veteran of two new custom houses in the last 10 years, I can testify that as you're choosing each item -- and there are literally thousands of choices in a house -- that item becomes (necessarily) the focus. And as such, it gains far more importance than it deserves. It's just so hard to see the big picture when you're focusing on a detail. When everything is finished, and all the individual details are in place, your eye finally has a chance to see the big picture . . . and, in my case, at least, those details I agonized over tend to blend together to produce the pleasing whole.

That's not to say it's impossible to make a mistake -- witness my grey-in-the-sample living room carpet that turned green on the floor :o(. I think you'll love that little cabinet detail and in a year you'll wonder why you worried about it.

One more thing . . . most of us, if not all, have had at least one similar decision crisis. You're not alone!

I'm coming in a bit late on this, but I had to jump in...

We have ordered almost identical cabinets (in white) -- and we are going for a rather "plain" style.

In my previous house I installed shaker-style cabinets, in natural maple (1995). I discovered that dirt of all sorts gets caught in there where the bottom stile sits square against the back panel, and it's hard to clean. The maple mostly hid it, but, with white cabinets, any dirt/debris is much more noticeable and it's harder to keep looking good. I discovered that some people avoid shaker cabs and get beading specifically to reduce that problem.

Also, cabinets with a bead are actually more "classic" than shaker style. (Trust me; our old cabinets are from 1916 and they are recessed-panel with a lot of beading.) Shaker will always look good, but it is a bit trendy and is more likely to "date" than the timeless door you selected.

So, there are two reasons you might not have thought of why you have made the right choice for the long-term!

Re countertops, we started with very dark granites but have ended up choosing a light one, which should not show fingerprints so much. (That's not the main reason we went lighter -- it was mostly aesthetics -- but that was a supporting factor in our shift.) Just something to think about if you hate those fingerprints!

" well really, I only ask the six-year-old, because every one else in the family has had it with my kitchen obsession. I guess I haven't stooped so low as to start talking kitchen to the dog-- yet."

I read the first sentence and said to myself - 'well, i'd ask the dog!'... then i read the 2nd sentence and YIKES! found out I'm stooping low... lol!

btw, I'm always telling her to get a job - so if anyone's interested i'll give out her phone number...make her up some bz cards.

I looked at that cab site and whatever 'bead' you're talking about I couldn't even see it. it can't stand out that much!
I'm pretty plain on these things also. had to force myself to go with a busier counter top or else everything will be beige except the cabs - med brown. so boring. I'm trying to make myself do something different. not sure I'll make it tho.

Thank you all SO much! I have gotten past that break down and am on to the next - literally! Now, its counter time!

s8thrd -- WHAT light granite did you choose??? Will you share pictures if you have a moment?

Many thanks!

No photos. The completion of the new space was delayed, so installation of everything is on hold.

Our cabinets are actually a creamy white, and we opted for an unusual and possibly-high-risk granite choice: something called "Typhoon Green." It's actually a softly-greenish-off-white color (darker than the cabs but still light) with small streaks of dark green and yellow-green, some tiny dark red spots, and some gray areas. It looks almost like a marble. My wife liked it partly because we didn't see anything like it anywhere else. (Then we DID see a cousin of it elsewhere called Key Lime, but it was a stronger yellow-green color.) It was also quite affordable compared to other unusual granites.

Although we're doing a fairly traditional kitchen, we're bucking the all-white/neutral trend, going for lots of color and trying to be different. Maybe we'll regret it...

I have creamy white cabinets with bianco romano (grayish-taupe) granite. Very neutral and timeless. My front cabs are chocolate brown with bianco romano. Search on muranogirl (she used kashmir white, I think)--that was my inspiration kitchen.