Like many others, we were benefited by many great ideas and inspiration on this forum. Thank you all so much!

What we did:
Painted the existing cabinets with Swiss Coffee eggshell
New crystal knobs and cup pulls
Demo-ed old tile countertop and put Caeserstone quartz countertop in Nougat
New sinks (Kohler) and faucets (Hansgrohe--spelling?)
All new appliances
Refrigerator--Jenn-Air floating glass side by side
Ovens--GE Monnogram Advantium, GE Monnogram wall-mount oven
Cooktop--Jenn-Air electric downdraft stainless
DW--Miele

New backsplash--Hakatai glass and marble mosaic
New lighting
Existing Junker solid maple floor

"The Befores"

Tiling backsplash was fun! I highly recommend try DIY.

Really like this crystal knob which I got very cheap on eBay.

Round kohler bar sink with Hansgrohe faucet

Close-up of Caeserstone Nougat, mitered edge

We have bee ejoying this new kitchen for 2 months now, and all the work is well worth it. Quarts countertop is so easy to clean, new appliances work fantastic, and it is a very carefree, easy-to-maintain kitchen.

Do I like cooking now? Well, that is whole another story...

Of course I LOVE your countertop (pro-quartz here all the way!) :) And I LOVE LOVE LOVE your backsplash tiles.

And that Jenn Aire...Those floating glass refrigerators are 'calling to me'....every time I see another one...wonder if Santa could get it down the chimney for xmas???

Enjoy your lovely work. You can be proud of it!

LOVE the Jenn-air floating glass door fridge! It just goes to show all the appliances do not have to match either.

I was wondering how thick your countertop is. I am looking at a quartz product but I understood that you could not do it s substatial as yours - a look i love.

They do make a thicker 1 1/2" material, but that still would not have matched our countertop height.

-DH of gracesantacruz

The only giveaway is around the sink cut-outs - the stone is 3/4" thick there.

-DH of gracesantacruz

Here in CA Bay Area, everything seems to cost twice as much as in the rest of US, but we managed to keep our budget relatively reasonable.

Typical kitchen remodel could cost $50-$100K, but ours was a little over $20K because:
1) We kept our original cabinets by painting them.
2) We purchased all the appliances online and found good deals including no tax.
3) We did some DIY--backsplash, most of electric works, plumbing, and did not hire a general contractor.
4) Our painter Mike is the fastest, most thorough, very affordable wonderful professional. He did the most tedious part of removing the wall papers and all the painting, which would have taken us months.

Well, actually due to the economy, we were able to find very good deals and professionals readily available for our job. Now is a very good time to do remodeling and help our economy a little bit.

I hope this helps.
Good luck with your projects!!

Gracesantacruz herself ;)

Beautiful job.

Beekeeperswife, your description sounds so wonderful and classic! I am sure your new kitchen will be so fantastic!

Just to respond to some comments:

Yes, we took a risk by choosing Jenn-Air floating glass RF instead of stainless. I was very scared if it would work.

But I just liked the look of it so much, so I decided on this one. (Ours is full depth, and it was discontiued since.) It turned out that it hardly show fingerprints. I only have to wipe it a couple of times a months and it looks sparkling clean. Love that!

Paiting the existing cabinet was another big decision. It is solid oak but after 25yrs, it was looking dingy no matter what I did.
Our super painter Mike recommended to go with eggshell rather than semi-gloss swiss coffee, which turned out to be crucial.

Eggshell finish gave us much softer, classier tone. (ie. looks more expensive) I was worried about stains and dirt on white cabinets, but because the dirt and stains show clearly, I can just wipe it with soapy sponge and in 2 seconds, they are gone.
In the previous natural wood finish, stains and dirt was hard to spot, but it was just so dingy. Any cleaning method was futile, and I was so not motivated to clean the cabinet.

And of course, Caeserstone countertop. Yes, after dealing with dingy grout line, this is a dream. Highly recommend it!

All in all, our new kitchen is for a person like me--hate to clean, but love sparkling clean kitchen, and you can have the best of both world.

The floor is about 5 years old.
It is a solid maple 5inch wide plank by the company called Junker. They may have discontinued the maple though...

The finish of the floor is simple polyurethane (prefinished) instead of aluminum something. We are willing to have occasional refinishing, given it is in the kitchen, and did not want the harzardous material in the finish.

I hope this helps.

I am glad that you picked the beachy feel of our kitchen. We have ocean view from kitchen/dining windows, and it was important for us to incorporate it.

Great job!

I have a question regarding your penninusla, did you install the drawers on the overhang yourself? Are they functional? How do you like them? It seems like such a wise use of available space. (I have an island that I've been thinking of adding drawers to the apron.)

On the 3 "under" countertop drawers, yes they are small, but very functional. They hold magazine/papers (regular size must go in sideways). It was a worthwhile addition with our cabinet maker who had to modify a few items during our makeover. We got the idea from a magazine front cover photo a few months back.

I struggled with the undercounter lighting above the long peninsula. I went with Juno min-track light system. There are 3 stainless mini-fixtures hanging very discretely below the long cabinets. They made a huge difference in the evening to have these lights, and we did not have to run ugly wires around inside our outside the cabinets. I may retrofit the bar area track lights with lower profile one day (these are full size tracks with transformers at the base)

-DH of gracesantacruz

To debbie 123, the old backsplash was removed by the countertop people along with the tiled countertop. They just jused manual hammer and plybar, and it came down pretty smoothly. Then we patched dents and halls with wall compound. I think it can be easily a DIY project to remove it.
Installing the new backsplash was not difficult, either. This is my second tiling project ever.
Just like any tiling job, you just have to dilligent, not to cut corners, and use the right materials like right type of thinset, grout, etc. The tile manufacturer has detail info in their website.
I used my $100 wet tile saw with regular blade to cut the tiles, and it worked just fine. (for other type of glass, you may need a special blade for glass, but first, you can just try cutting with the regular blade to see it it works.)
The triangle ledge between the windows--we were not sure whether we shoud tile it or put the painted wood. It is close to the cooktop and gets a lot of sunlight, so I settled with tiling to enjoy the sparkle and for easy maintenance from heat and spattering from the countertop.
I just slathered thinset directly on the plywood substrate and cut the tiles to match the patterns of backsplash. I used a paper template of the triangle ledge to mark the cut.

As for the paint job, the painter just removed all the doors and drawers--all all 45 of them (!), then he used our garage to spray each one of them front and back very patiently. He painted cabinets in place with brush, but you can't see any brush stroke because oak shows natural grain a little to obscure the brush stroke.

You also have oak cabinets--we happened to like a little oak grain showing through the paint. It looks organic and natural because we are not going for ultra-modern sleek look.

If you like your existing layout, painting the existing cabinet could be a good idea. It cut down wastes and costs (a lot of it!), and still results look like brand new cabinets.

If you want to add or modify cabinets, cabinet makers can easily match the door style so you can still use existing ones.
Painting cabinets is the task we are so glad to have hired professionals. To achieve good results, you need 3-4 coats of primer and paint, inside out, front and back--it is a mind-numbing task. We got estimates from $2200-6400 (!!), and $2200 job turned out beyond our expectation.

t was crucial to achieve uniform, beautiful paint job in our plan, and once it's done, our 25-year old, dingy oak cabinets nowlook brand new!

I hope this helps.

Gracesantacruz

And the painted cabinets look SMASHING!!! I am soooooo impressed!

Congratulations and ENJOY!!!

The Ebay vendor's name was collectible_4u_2, but I do not see the same knob on ebay now...
Thier email is mtcsigns@msn.com you may be able to ask them via email.
The knob was mere $4.25 per piece, and it is real glass. We looked at Restoration Hardware's expensive ones, but we liked ours better for our design.

Good luck!

shagen, the seller of the bar stools is emmanuel.georges, again on eBay. It is wide and very sturdy at 20-inch wide.

They have many modern bar stools, so you can look various designs.

We looked for bar stools extensively and found this one which was the lowest price $139 including shipping. I put the link in the below.

I wonder if the height will be a problem with my new cabinets coming in...

Good luck with your decision - it's almost purely aesthetic. The mitered edge is almost impossible to see unless you get real close (inches) and know what to look for, even then it's hard to see. One thing is that it really shows off the material well. I can't believe I would ever say this on an engineered stone!

-DH of gracesantacruz

The "before" where you can see the ample clearance even to go thicker if we wanted.

The "after" closeup - this Nougat has plenty of "depth" as the embedded crystals transmit some light and doesn't look like it was "painted" on the material. When you get near an corner edge with sunlight, these crystals glow.

One more "after photo" - the sink internal edge is 3/4", the front edge is 2 1/4". It gives some comparison for you.

You did an amazing job! Congrats on a truly beautiful space!

1) Right bowl is deeper (10"), and with screens at bottom, it holds dishes for drying out of view. No more drying rack sitting on the countertop to the right, so it effectively expanded our kitchen counter space.

2) With undermount sink, it's much easier to clean and wipe. We used a flush overhang on the countertop.

3) No dropped and broken glasses yet on the steel - it's not as 'hard' a surface and forgiving

4) Shines up easily with Barkeeper's Friend

5) There is more "surface" space in this stainless steel sink than previous enamel even though cutout size is the same. The steel is much tighter (square) on the corners and the centerline partition is thinner than most sinks, even other stainless steel sinks. This allows larger pots and pans to fit inside.

You can research stainless steel sinks - there are many options. This particular one from Kohler had more "square" bends maximizing space, and we got on Ebay new for less than half retail. Model # K-3351-L.

-DH of gracesantacruz

What is the wall colour? I've been looking for the perfect beachy blue and that is it!

Love the kitchen. Some day I'll get to do mine.

I'd love to know which Hakatai tile you used . . . is it TR640 Celestial Blend? I sure love how yours looks, and I'm particularly impressed that you found it fun to do. We've considered doing our own -- I'd chosen a Oceanside glasstile but several posters have reported quality control issues with it so am ready to reconsider.

Again: GREAT job!

Arlene

Thanks

anny-2009: United Marble in San Jose (just east of 101). I think we paid around $5000 to $5500 total with no sinks. About $600 for added mitered edge feature. No complaints at all - they got it installed in about 3 hours and took great care in demolition. Very professional, highly recommended.

jenanglecat: blue is "Hatteras Haze" from Kelly Moore. The other wall (goes into dining room area) is "Abalone White" from Behr - this goes particularly well with the Nougat and the backsplash - it's a "warm" white, almost like an exotic white sand tone.

Some other "blues" you might consider is "Seville" from Kelly Moore - you'll need them to look it up in some older catalogs since they do not display it any longer (but can make it) and "Spa Retreat" from Behr - it's in one of their special indoor color brochures. We used both elsewhere in the house (master bath/bedroom)in a similar manner - maple floors, carrara marble (subtle veins), glass iridescent tiles, nickel or stainless steel fixture/lights - and were very pleased as well.

-DH of greacesantacruz

Thanks.

Our kitchen layout was still optimal after 25 years, so it made it much cheaper and easier to update.

About the appliances, the GE Monograms are beautiful and would have like to match them all together. However, their Monogram dishwasher handle stuck out too far and would block a drawer in our configuration, and we didn't like the exposed hinges on the Monogram refrigerator. We thought about all Jenn-air, but disliked the wall ovens and still had the dishwasher towel bar interference problem with the drawer.

Instead, we were able to find other appliances that went well together with the ovens and had the functions we liked best. They all have some stainless steel, but either have glossy black or glossy white. Also, we tossed out the compactor and replaced it with a pullout dual waste&recycle bins with outer door matching existing cabinets along with an extra undercabinet drawer - thank you cabinet maker! We used the same cabinet maker to adjust the height above the refrigerator (new fridge was taller) and to make minor adjustments to the oven cavity to fit the GE Monogram ovens. He added those 3 drawers in front of the bar stools - we allowed a little "scope creep" here.

So, we wanted to share this with others who encounter similar dilemmas when retrofitting a kitchen - we were able to mix and match appliances (or eliminate in case of compactor) and get the best of all by sticking with a few design rules and employing a cabinet maker to make a few critical adjustments.

-DH of gracesantacruz

Congrats on a fabulous kitchen!

I've seen a few clear glass and marble backsplashes with this countertop work also well. Here is one from Sarah Richardson. I'll post link to a write-up also. Note how glass and marble work well with this countertop. We found this article during our remodel (and later on TV); it just gave us confirmation in the Caesarstone and the approach we chose.

-DH of gracesantacruz

Enjoy it :-)
Eliz

That said... may I archive your kitchen in the Finished Kitchens Blog? If so please submit the FKB Category Checklist so I can easily categorize your kitchen.

Thank you!

What kind of paint did you use? We don't have solid wood cabinets and are planning our kitchen remodel. The cabinets are thin veneer (?) and are builder cabinets, 12 yrs old. To cut costs, we are thinking if we should paint the cabinets, instead of replacing them.
Please see my posting 'Help requested with kitchen layout/breaking wall'.

Did you first try painting a section of the cabinet to see how it looks? Also, how does one ensure that the paint sticks to the cabinet material and doesn't peel off?

We would like to add some more cabinets during remodel and I am wondering if the difference between painted and new cabinets will be obvious. Kitchen experts, any thoughts?

Thanks.

The primer was an oil-based primer. I remember as it smelled. Our painter said that's the only thing that sticks really well. Some of the newer water based paints are durable enough for cabinets and won't yellow like oil based.

We hired an experienced painter who had done cabinets before. As with most oak cabinets, the heavy grain pattern is difficult to cover completely and he had to experiment a little on the cabinet back sides first. For the cabinet faces and drawer faces, he used a brush to try and get some of the primer into the grain, and he used an spraygun in our garage to spray 3 or 4 coats on top of 1 or 2 coats of primer. The airgun made the front surfaces nice and flat looking. He converted our garage for 2 weeks into a paint shop.

For the cabinet housing, since we wanted a little wood grain to show, he used a brush since the grain hides the brushmarks well.

I don't think I could do this myself and pull it off like our painted did. I think to make it look good, it requires experience.

No peeling or chipping, and stains just wipe right off.

As far as knowing difference between painted and new cabinets, it's really hard for me to say. All I can say is a good paint job made our cabinets look brand new again, and I think new/matching hinge and hardware is also very important.

We spent only a tiny fraction of what new cabinets would cost. Maybe 5%. Actually, they extend out into a dining room (not pictured) with a bay window/cabinet array, total of about 50 drawers and doors total. Replacing all those cabinets would have broken the bank, and these cabinets are still VERY nice still with the edge details, frosted glass - they just needed paint and new hardware. One day I may rephoto the whole kitchen and dining room together when we buy that thick Teak dining table and Rattan chairs that has been winking at us.

-DH of gracesanatacruz