I;m with your husband on this one. Why take any attention away from the beautiful cabinets and countertops? Walnut is busy (I am in the middle of my own walnut cabinet installation) and even the macaubus has something going on. I would not do anything to distract from the real stars here. As someone said on this board recently, you can't have too many clowns in the room (or something like that).

I think simpler is better. Your room is pretty busy on its own. Lots of plane changes, and corners, beams and lights. I vote for frosted plain glass.

Nancy

i agree that something simple and obscure would not detract from your other choices. i am planning on reed glass myself. i have it on my doors already and will probably do the same on my cabinets. frosted laminate glass would also be a safe choice and i think if you request laminate glass, it will not show fingerprints like sandblasted (or perhaps the other way around-- one of those is less maintenance if i remember correctly). for something more interesting/modern, how about the paris from the buildersdoor site?

Here is a link that might be useful: glass paris

Since you are using it for doors, make sure the glass you choose is temperable. I discovered while looking for cabinet glass that not all glass is.

Pretty glass. It wants to be the star but it can't be the star in your kitchen- that's what your KD is saying. So you have to really minimize the design to use it. Maybe one line of the squares set in varying sizes, some maybe stretched into rectangles, running vertically through the light, very off center- no arcs, no squiggles. Blow up the existing design at Kinkos, cut out the individual elements and play with it. It has to be a very minimal design, and at that point it may not block the view of the side yard as much so you may not want to do it at all, but you won't know until you play with it.

NYCbluedevil, I agree that I do not want a clown car kitchen!

Nancy, our lighting is actually simpler than what is shown, but I agree we do have a lot going on. I like plain frosted glass, but my designer warned me that texture tends to show marks easily if anything damp or greasy touches the surface and is hard to keep clean looking. Have you had experience with frosted glass?

Michoumonster, our exterior door, whatever design we pick, will be laminated to meet local energy codes. I had not thought about that for the pantry. The Paris is cool looking (and my favorite city) but not quite opaque enough.

Camphappy, that is a good point about tempered glass - thanks for the reminder.

Localeater, that is an interesting idea - I will run it by my designer. I can picture doing a vertical strip of rectangles and squares maybe 1/3 of the way over from one side, with a very opaque glass on one side of the line and a less opaque glass on the other side. The more opaque glass could be repeated on the pantry doors to tie the elements together.

DH and I picked out a few glass textures we think might work. What do you think of these? If we pick a pattern with lines/ridges, do you think vertical or horizontal would be better?

Ripple:
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Quarter Reed:
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Pilkington Stippolyte:
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Pattern 62:
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Master Point:

Cord:

Cannes:

Thela:
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Have you considered Anderson Frenchwood doors and the Anderson Art Glass inserts. Some are incredibly simple and quite modern and wouldn't compete with your design. There is also their Frank Lloyd Wright series. You can get it with plain or antique glass as background. The antique glass blocks the view without blocking the light. I have the Colonnade in one room and the Prairie in another. I get loads of compliments.