It's all SO GOOD!!!

I love it - but you had me at your layout pics ages ago!
that ceiling!!!
Enjoy!

What a wonderful place! Thank you for sharing!

The barn doors are a clever idea. I like everything about your kitchen.

So love it - and I am so glad you posted it as it lives :) Thinking of Manchester Tan as a hallway color - front hall, up stairs, through to back hall and down . . . are you happy with it? We don't have loads of light in the hallways and need a lighter color. . .

I remember you posting some pics during the summer...maybe it was for paint color. Regardless, your kitchen I think is my favorite of all kitchens I have seen in total. I love love love your kitchen. It is an A++++++ in my book. Flawless

What a charming home. I love all the "little spaces" in it. Even though I'm sure it's quite huge, it doesn't seem cold and vast the way you have it divided up. The walnut countertops just exude warmth, too. Really lovely space.

Your kitchen is beyond gorgeous. I would feel like I was living in a design magazine every day.

Sounds great... I'm jealous. ;-) Thanks for answering!

Thanks everybody! This has been a really fun project, I loved every second of it!
To answer a couple of the questions:
Athens, I love Manchester Tan. We used it for trim, ceilings, etc, but my mother-in-law had it for her bedroom. It was just a nice color!
Dilly, the arched window is 7' wide. The lower windows are 5'tall, and the springline is about 26", making them about 7'2" tall at the highest point. The part I struggled with in designing the windows with the window guy was I wanted the "lites," mullions, whatever you call them, to be equal per set of windows, and furthermore, I wanted the mullions to be taller than they are wide (read "Traditional Construction Patterns," and this was pointed out in the book). The window guy had trouble understanding why this was important. I stuck with the concept throughout the house though, and one of the first comments is usually about how pretty the windows are, nice and open. So, i guess it was worth making a stink about. Not that you asked, but if you are considering this type of window, I think the pattern matters!

Thanks again all for looking, helping and supporting throughout this process!

Wowza, Wowza, Wowza!!!! Your kitchen and surrounding spaces are absolutely stunning!! I love that walnut countertop!

Thanks for posting pictures and your floor plan so I/we could get a better idea of the flow and how everything relates to each other. Fabulous job!!! Congratulations!

Mythreesonsnc- 7 foot tall windows! Wow! What brand are they? Or did your window guy customize the window? I just love it.

mythreesons-Absolutely stunning!!! I love everything about your new space! Those floors and the island countertop are gorgeous!! I'd love to see a close up of your crema marfil backsplash with the hood and rangetop. We opted to hold off on our backsplash for now due to indecisiveness, but yours is beautiful. Congrats!!!

congratulations! your house is beautiful and the kitchen is wonderful! i LOVE your prep area. genius! good luck in your beautiful home and enjoy your efforts.

I love the beautiful ceiling, windows, barn door, and counters. But most of all, I love the layout and functionality of your space. You did a marvelous and thorough job of planning--maximizing your space its utmost. Kudos to you and thank you so much for sharing your journey. Wishing you joy in your new home!

**clap clap clap clap**

Hooray, you're done! Congratulations to you on such a momentous feat! We need a 'reveal' in the building forum for the rest of the house. What a fantastic job you've done with the kitchen area. All the thought you've put into it really shows. Double Hip Hip Hooray!

Amazing! So beautiful, thanks for sharing!

Every detail really looks fantastic. You did such a great job! And, I absolutely love your walnut countertop!

How do you like the barn doors? Our interior designer added some to a closet between kitchen/family room area, and I love the idea/look, just wondering how they really work in real life!

Beautiful! We are working on our kitchen design now and have a vaulted ceiling with the lowest point 12 feet high high point 20 feet. I would love to know the height and dimensions of you cabinets, hood and island. Hard to decide how high to go with the hood and cabinets.

kerry17 - we are using medallion cabinets also in the same color combo, using the Mendocino in maple 5 piece drawer fronts. Planning on a white island and range hood and gingersnap on the perimeter cabinets. Have you ordered your cabinets yet? Would love to see pictures.

hi RT --- Happy to give some dimensions. We actually drew this all out in powerpoint to figure out how high we wanted the beams. We made a little slideshow at the time and put the beams at varying heights. We played the slideshow for ourselves and friends / family. We all voted for the same height, so drawing an elevation out made it easy to see how we would like it! It might help you to draw out that particular wall to see how it looks. My original plan was different, but once I drew it out, I realized my hood was WAYYYYY too big and it looked really top heavy. Here is a pic of that wall head on (funny, in this picture, the handles on the fridge and freezer are on the wrong sides, guess my builder caught it and had them fix it)!

OK, here are our dimensions.
Our vault is very similar to your plan -- our lowest point is 11'8", and the peak is about 23'. The room width is about 20'8". On our range wall, the height of the fridge / freezer cabinets is 9'4" x 30" width (those are the outermost cabinets on either side). The smaller cabinets between the fridge / freezer and hood are 17" wide, 48" tall. The hood is 42" wide x 54" high (from the floor measurement it is 10'2" high). From a practical standpoint, the tall cabinets on top of the fridge are pretty hard to access --- I store holiday platters and things that I need infrequently up there (those knobs are set at 7'4" --- yikes). Hope that helps a bit --- I'm happy to give you other dimensions if I didn't quite answer your question!

Andik -- I love the barn doors, but really mainly as a novelty. Everybody loves them because they look cool, but the reality is, they rarely get closed. At first they wanted to swing back and forth (the rail is on top and the bottom of the door was somewhat loose, and it tended to want to bang on the wall. My builder was concerned it would ding up his trim work, so he built up a door stop type of mechanism to prevent it from banging. This really helps! So, bottom line, I love love love the doors, and would do it all again in a heartbeat, but they did take a bit of tweaking. I will say, as an aside that they seem much easier to me than the sets of pocket doors we have in the house. How is your plan coming, by the way?

Gorgeous kitchen! I love the beamed ceilings and that walnut countertop is stunning! Great idea putting the frig drawers in the breakfast area. Those barn doors are amazing! Terrific job pulling everything together!

Thanks for the info. I absolutely love the way they look. And, my guess is that we'd probably leave them open a lot also. Currently, we have ours at 21" wide each (with a larger opening into the space), and I'm debating on whether it would be better to just do one door @ 30-36" wide. My thinking is that at 21", you'd probably have to open both to go into the space, but at 30-36, you could just slide it over...and if it's left open, it's just left open. I think we'll nail it down once framing gets moving.

We are finished with the plans (finally...lol!!!) and just waiting on permit process now! That seems like a slow painful death as I'm so ready to get started!!! We have the house site marked already. So, hopefully we will get permits in the next couple of weeks and can start digging some holes!

Looks lovely from what I can see but it's hard to take it all in with such large photos. They are too large to take in even with my wide screen monitor. (It's also difficult for me to follow the text - I have a very hard time when I have to scroll side to side to read stuff). Do you have your photos stashed at a photo sharing site that you'd be willing to share with us? That would help me and maybe others here view your wonderful new kitchen more easily. Thanks!

Congrats on being finished!

It's just beautiful. You must be so thrilled. The ceiling and beams are stunning, the wood countertop is really lovely. It all just goes together perfectly. Can you tell me where your chandeliers came from, especially the very simple one over the banquette.

Enjoy!!!

How long is your maple countertop? And do you mind giving a ballpark figure of how much the maple countertop cost? And was it difficult to install? Am looking into having a wooden counter for our new kitchen island and this information would be incredibly helpful. Thank you! And beautiful kitchen, congrats and enjoy.

WOW! Gorgeous house, beautiful kitchen. It is obvious how much planning you've put into this. Enjoy!

I am so glad you posted the finished kitchen. I thought it was pretty in the earlier stages. My cabinets are a Manchester Tan color as well with a granite similar to yours and I am so happy with it. I am going to be building another house and I am going to try to get an island in the walnut countertop as beautiful as yours. Again thanks for sharing. I love what you did.

Wow!! Beautiful home, beautiful kitchen- love it all, but your ceiling, island, and barn door are really special!

Love your whole house! It's been fun to follow your progress here and on the building forum. Hope it's as wonderful to live in as it is to look at!

Beautiful!! I love the layout and the colors!!

Amazing!

I love it all--especially the barn doors, the beams, and all those gorgeous windows! Beautiful job!

Wowzers.

Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous! This was esp. fun for me to see since you & I both have very similar-looking walnut island countertops, and I'm considering using barn doors & built-in window seats when we finish our terrace level (phase 2 of our renovation). Also made me feel better to hear that your Perrin & Rowe sprayer leaks too. I have the same P&R bridge faucet (in diff. finish) and I've noticed little drips of water on the marble after I put the sprayer back in place -- annoying! Thanks for sharing your finished kitchen!

Thank you all! It is nice to hear as this was basically my "job" for about a year!

Sorry for being so slow --- yesterday we tried to get some grading done at our house for some landscaping and the bulldozer hit our phone line --- so no phone or internet until Friday... and I have an old type cell phone that doesn't really do internet. So, I am lost and a bad responder. I'll be back in action in a few days though.

The couple of quick questions that I think I just saw (I'm at Panera, just to get online for a few minutes, but I can't be late to be "mystery reader' at school!)...

The simple chandelier over the b-fast area is Hubbardton Forge.
Also, can't remember who commented about the size of the pics --- they are annoying, I'm sorry..... I wish I had realized it before I uploaded a bunch. I can't upload more now because of time crunch, but I did do a little diary blog to keep track of our building progress --- highly recommend it just to remember the thought process, etc. I have some pics on there, though not sure just how many are just kitchen?

Sweetandrew, can't wait to see pics!

Here is a link that might be useful: blog....

Wow. The ultimate in Pantry Heaven!

Enjoy! :)

Wow, so much to love! It's already been said by everyone else but I have to gush about my favourite things as well: love love love the walnut, high ceilings, exposed beams, ginormous windows, barn doors and many of the layout features you've described in the followups and questions answered.

I'm sure you'll enjoy making memories in your new space. Congrats on finishing a job well done!

Gorgeous kitchen and home!! Wonderful choices!!

It's a beautiful kitchen! You've done a wonderful job of making a spacious, family space feel cozy and inviting. Everything is so well planned and organized...but I think my favorite thing is still the banquette :)

Love seeing the barn doors. A friend here in CO has them for their music room doors, we are planning them for our office doors. Did you order them or the hardware from barndoorhardware.com or do you have another supplier? Beautiful home. Thank-you for the inspiration.

I remember your kitchen in progress too, and those magnificent beams! We were talking about your lighting and options as I recall. Really a beautiful suite of rooms.

I remember seeing sneak peeks of your kitchen in progress and have been waiting for the full reveal.
It is absolutely beautiful!!
The island countertop, the floor, the exposed beams, the open plan, the whole thing.
This is deserving of an AD article.
Congratulations on a great outcome.

Oh my, just now seeing this, I wasn't online last week....absolutely STUNNING! So glorious, so much lovely space! The beams and barn doors are show stoppers...you must be so happy and proud of of all your hard work. Are you having fun oiling your walnut? :) I just did mine again last night...it loves it's monthly oil rub down!

I keep coming back to this beautiful kitchen. It is an absolute classic.. Very tasteful warm and inviting.
congratulations on your finished kitchen.

Your kitchen is beautiful! I love the high ceiling, the warm cabinet color, the dark floors, that beautiful counter top on the island and the beautiful counters on the perimeter. I love the stainless steel appliances and the backsplash.

I love your kitchen! The small prep area behind those really neat barn doors is very interesting. I would think it would be a very practical way to keep your main kitchen looking tidy when a lot of guests are over. The refrigerator doors over by the breakfast area are a cool idea too. The soft warm colors are lovely and will be easy to live with for years.

Congratulations on a well thought out gorgeous space! Enjoy!

OK, all I can say is WOW~ You did a great job on everything. It looks amazing

Beautiful kitchen! I love your island top. Did you have your wood top done locally or find it thru the internet? I am looking for a walnut top for my island.
Thanks!

Absolutely gorgeous!

Sooooo beautiful. Love it all.

The barn doors were the one thing I really wanted in my kitchen but couldn't convince DH. He'll be sorry when he sees this!

Enjoy...

Where did you get your counter top from? I'm looking for my house and can't find much in wide plank nor deep enough for an island.

Your home is beautiful, I love all of your choices!

mythreesonsnc has been gone for almost seven years.