Hey Nerdette! First off, love the name! I don't envy you one bit as you're refinishing those cabs! But they're going to look beautiful - especially with the London Grey. I keep looking at our samples and love it more and more. Now if only I can find a tile to go with...Still stuck on a 2x4 subway tile. Not sure of what color, though. We'll have white cabs. I've paired it with a milky white (looks good) and the tans/beige that the LG has in it. I'm also going to try a lighter gray. When I saw the LG slab, it definitely pulled some cream/beige, but in my kitchen it reads more gray. Did you try gray tiles before settling on the milky white? If so, what did you think?

I did, and it wasn't enough contrast for me. I'll post some photos below of what I'm going with. The drawer front is after sanding my first coat of paint, so imagine it a solid grey color. One thing about the tile I chose. Since it's glass, the grout shows through the edges (slightly) of the tile. I created the grout board to make sure I was choosing the right one (went with Mapei Frost).

Incidentally, my first choice was subway tile. I love how it looks. Part of the reason I went with the tile above was because we've had square white tile for the last 11+ years (two different houses), and my husband was disappointed that I was choosing another plain white tile. So I upgraded to glass and the horizontal varied long lengths.

Have you thought about a pillow subway? Or a textured subway of some sort? Maybe that would bring the somehting extra you are looking for.

Gables - I just realized your cabinets were white! I think grey subway would look beautiful! I vetoed it because my cabinets are grey - too much of a good thing. Check out this kitchen below. Gorgeous.

Here is a link that might be useful: White cabs with grey subway

Nerdette, wow! You have to show pics of your completed kitchen!! I LOVE the tile you picked. Everything's going to look great. Thanks so much for the link on the white/gray kitchen. I really like that look. I'll have to google pillow subway...haven't heard of that yet unless that's another term for beveled. Will you post pics when your London Grey is installed? I feel like a kid at Christmas waiting to see mine!

I have Silestone Lagoon (quartz) with a real marble backsplash and it looks awesome!

I'll post more pics after my kitchen gets painted after the holidays.
Kompy

Kompy, the Lagoon and marble look great. Looking forward to seeing those finished pics. :)

Thanks Gables! My kitchen is still not painted yet. My painter has put me on the back burner. It's OK I told him to. But he did promise before Thanksgiving....well that didn't happen, so now hoping before Christmas.

Here's our festive kitchen on Thanksgiving day!

Gables - good luck with your decision making, I'll be following this and hoping you'll post updates. I am having BM Simply White Cabinets installed this week and am set on London Grey only to find out it's sold out locally with next shipment in Feb. Jury is still out whether I will change my mind to something more immediately available, but I had been planning on looking for a marble backsplash as well.

Nerdette -- I would love to see a picture of your kitchen after install! I would definitely consider that tile, I like the milky color with the LG and the varied lengths. What brand/where is the tile from? Chelsea Grey looks great, we are doing our island in BM Graystone.

Kompy - your silestone/marble pairing looks great, glad to know that can be a good option for us too!

Kompy - Nice kitchen!!

Lamki - Countertops should be coming tomorrow or next day! I'm feeling nervous about my tiles to be honest. I paid WAAAAY too much for them given the small amount of space, but I wanted something special. I'm also nervous that the grout seems to be turning the edges more grey, so the tile isn't looking as fresh as white as I first thought. But to return them would cost me $1000. Yikes. So onward I press and cross my fingers. It can't be THAT bad, right?? Tile is from Casa Dolce Casa. I had to get a friend of a friend (who is a decorator) to order for me, as they only sell to the trade through ONE local tile shop. I hate stuff like that. I just want to be able to order it myself.

Anyhow... yes, so I'm painting my cabinets Chelsea Grey. I'm not sure if I'm 100% happy with it, to be honest. But I think it's because my current wall color (which was going to change) is so similar to it. Blech.

I will update with photo soon!

Kompy, the Lagoon and marble look great together! I love your backsplash. Like many others on this forum, I am looking forward to seeing those finished pics.

Hey, did anyone get their counters installed? Would love to see pics???? Nerdette?

Gables and lamki what did you decide?

Lesmobo -- we were able to get the Ceasarstone London Grey installed and we love it!! It's a nice contrast to our BM simply white cabinets. Waiting on our marble tile backsplash to come in, and hoping it all ties together. We chose a 1x3 Jeffrey Court marble tile. Will come back to add pictures when it's done, unless anyone would like to see a backsplash-less photo before then to help with decision making!

Yes! We're not 100% finished (wall color, light fixture over sink, etc), but it's all installed! We are very happy with it with one minor exception. Just FYI, London Grey does not come in a very big slab, so we do have a seam. Boo. But no one has really noticed it as much as me. My glass tile turned out more grey than white (as originally planned), but I love it even better. And we retro fitted our own cabinet doors with glass. That was a fun project that I would HIGHLY recommend to others to take on themselves. It wasn't bad at all. We also refinished the cabinets ourselves (sanded the previous red gel stain down to the wood). I'm super happy with the paint brand, paint color, process, etc. but it was very very time and labor intensive. You'll also see on top of the fridge and on the side the new cabinetry I had built. Love it! LAstly, and not pictured, I had an outlet moved to the inside of a lower cabinet, which has worked out great for us to have a "charging drawer" for all our phones, laptops, etc. So yay!

Notice the bottom shelves are mostly empty. This is because my twin toddlers get into everything. The side cubes are for my oldest's homework supplies.

Also note that the flooring is temporary. When my little ones don't spill food on a daily basis, we will get a medium-dark toned ashy wood.
That is the Whitehaven sink from Kohler. It is a self-trimming apron, so there's no need for caulking or adding wood trim around the front apron edges of sink. We got it in a sea salt finish instead of the plain white. It's beautiful in person.

Last one. Close up of counter top. (That's a light saber in the background!)

Okay, this is REALLY the last one. This is the before (which is actually an after from when we first moved in a little over a year ago, as we painted over the yellow walls and removed a cow/chicken/pig pot rack/light fixture over the island). We removed the bar in the foreground in favor of a large counter top bar that kids and grownups alike can pull a stool up to. With time we'll replace the still functioning microwave and oven. I hate paying to replace something that still works!

Doesn't all Ceasarstone come in the same size slabs? We designed our island so it wouldn't have a seam.

Nerdette--gorgeous kitchen!! The counters look wonderful with your grey cabs. We have a seam as well, which is a bummer, but like you, I'm the only one who seems to be bugged by it. I was taken aback at first since we never used to have one and it stuck out to me. But I am getting used to it.

I do think all the slabs are the same size. We ended up with a seam because we were already getting 3 and to avoid a seam I think we would have needed 4 then had a lot of waste. (And at that cost, there was no way we were going to do that!) I'm just happy it's on the perimeter and not the island!

I misunderstood! We have a seam on the wall side too, just didn't want one in the island, so we made the island as big as we could without a seam (the slab is 120" and the island is 117-1/2").

Nerdette your kitchen is fantastic!! I really like the cube design that houses your cookbooks and homework. Everything came together beautifully! So pretty and the grey paint is really lovely. Thanks so much for posting the pictures. May I ask where the seam is located?

Lamki, would love to see your unfinished kitchen if possible! Am particularly interested in BM simply white and london gray and how they work together. Trying to decide all these things....!!!

Regarding the seam.... So my "batwing" bar, as they call it, was already there. I couldn't change the size of it to make it seamless. If only the slab would've been THREE inches longer. Seriously, just three! So at the bar there are four stools. The seam runs front to back from the pointed edge of the bar that divides the stools into two sets. I had two choices - either to run it from that point in or run it in the middle of a flat part right in front of where you sit. (I'm probably not explaining it well, but basically the seam runs from outside to inside corner as opposed to flat edge to flat edge.) It seemed to be a more natural place for it, and this was after I spent over an hour with my granite guy JUST figuring out this seam. He even delayed a day to go back and physically measure this exact slab - just in case. But oh well. Before this I had a laminate countertop with THREE seams, so this seems much better - even if I do notice it.

And thanks, everyone!!

Oh, and lesmobo - BM Simply White is what my island color matched to! I thought about doing my cabinets that color instead of BM Chelsea Grey, but I decided it was too much white. Also, my husband wants to add doors to the cubes on the front side, but I don't want to! I enjoy the color of the cookbook spines. (Of course I only put the pretty ones on the front side.) The cabinetry build is my favorite thing overall - so much storage and function, and I love that my fridge doesn't float anymore. Plus it looks like it's always been there, which is great.

ONE thing I forgot to mention - the actual slab of London Grey came in a shade lighter than my sample, which was much greyer in background. I had mixed feelings about this, but my tiler feels it makes it look much more like real marble.

"If only the slab would've been THREE inches longer. Seriously, just three!"

that's why my island is shorter than I wanted it to be! Ceasarstone Organic White, 120", that was the determining factor!! (Fortunately for us, we could customize our cabinets, so we just fudge some drawer sizes so we could gain 3" on our original plan)

Nerdette, great kitchen transformation! LOVE your cabs beside the fridge! The grey cabs look awesome and the glass looks great.

Lesmobo--here's a photo, sorry it's not that great, it's all I have on my phone right now. I definitely like the super white with London grey, but in this process I have realized how much the light in your space makes a huge difference in the way things appear!

This one has a bit of natural light to give you a better idea.

Love! Thank you Nerdette and Lamki. I know lighting and pictures change everything but there is something so reassuring about seeing the "real thing" albeit in someone else's kitchen! Truly appreciate your time and help!

Nerdette, loving the Chelsea Grey the more I look at it in your pictures. I wish I had more natural light to work with. And I would veto the doors on the built in cubes - I love how it looks now. Thanks for the seam information. With all the advances in today's world why can't they figure out a way to get rid of seams? We will have a seam too as ours is a pennisula similar to yours. Errr. Caesarstone must make a nice profit from offering such little slabs.

Lamki, love your kitchen too! So timeless and pretty! I'm sold on the combination! Really love the gray, yet warm/soft read of the counters.

Am fine with variation of overall coloring as long as it stays in the same similar family. Our sample reads a bit too dingy actually but that may be from me stroking it over and over ;-)

Many thanks!!!! Post pics when finished!

Caesarstone must make a nice profit from offering such little slabs.

True, but at least their slab sizes are uniform, so I could design my island and know that the slab would fit, unlike granite slabs (which don't come much bigger than Ceasarstone for the most part).

"True, but at least their slab sizes are uniform, so I could design my island and know that the slab would fit, unlike granite slabs (which don't come much bigger than Ceasarstone for the most part). "

I found the opposite to be true. My countertop guy kept asking me if I was sure about going ahead with London Grey because it is one of the smaller slabs available. Almost any granite I chose was much much larger. But alas, my mind was set! I envy that you were able to design your own island. Having a "batwing" shape is not something I ever, ever want to have in a kitchen again, but in the overall decision to purchase this house last year, it wasn't very important. We looked into ripping it (and the current island) out and making a massive eat in island, but of COURSE there's a load bearing wall that we can't move. Of course. :)

Robotropolis - Thanks!

Lamki - Fantastic cabinets and drawer pulls!! Love it all! And oh, how I'd love that kitchen window view. I look into someone else's brick wall. (We have a tree, but the leaves are off currently.)

Lesmobo - I agree with you. Someone should've come up with something right now to better deal with seams. Oh well. Also, I think my grey cabs will be showcased more once I finish painting the walls. It's hard to see, but I've got a few samples up on the right of the microwave. All of them are too dark, though. I might be going with Revere Pewter (yes, me and everyone else in the world). My walls currently (a tan color) are too dark.

I found the opposite to be true. My countertop guy kept asking me if I was sure about going ahead with London Grey because it is one of the smaller slabs available. Almost any granite I chose was much much larger.

I'm curious about this. You found many choices of granite that were more than 10' long (which is how long a slab of Ceasarstone is - 54" wide x 120" long)? My google research tells me most granite slabs (average) are smaller than 10'.

Ahh... it's the width that was the problem. I could get granite in wider pieces but not London Grey. Which is kind of weird since it's man made. My batwing shape isn't just long, it's wide because of the weird angles. :(

which is kind of weird since it's man made

Manmade, but it comes in one size only 54" x 120". I get what you're saying now. Our "width" is only 38", for us it was the length. We might have gone with 11' or more (it's an island, but it's really like the second side of a galley kitchen), but not having a seam in an open-plan kitchen (kitchen, LR and DR are all one-room) seemed (ha ha) like a no-brainer.

Hopefully these London Gray shots will be helpful to someone. I have gotten so much information from everyone here, wanted to share some pics. Sorry not sure how to prevent the photo from loading sideways...

Another...

couple more...

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oops here's 1 more... In the stone yard it looks a little more gray than in alot of the installed kitchen photos from this thread. This is Royal Stone in West LA if anyone is wondering...

London Grey---Love it! Still working on backsplash, though. My slab is slightly- every so slightly -different than the sample I carried around with me for months! But it's okay. Just maybe could affect some choices as the undertone is a little different. If it's an option, wait till the countertop is in before finalizing other things where undertone could be important!

London Gray - Have your LG counters been installed? Did you end up using Royal Stone?

To those wondering about a backsplash with London Grey/Frosty Carrina/creamy white cabinets - have you looked at mother of pearl mosaic backsplashes? It's not cheap, but it has a ton of creamy white-to-tan-to-grey tones in it and goes quite well with the creamier toned cabinets and quartzes. I believe the Tileshop has one on the pricier side, and I am almost positive that I saw one in Home Depot that is about $15-$17 dollars a sheet too (maybe check Lowes as well). The various tones seem to go with a myriad of soft whites. Good luck!

Yes I purchased at Royal Stone and Tile in West LA. Like everyone else I was looking for marble look-a-like that was more durable. I didn't like anything until I saw the LG and I thought yes that could work. I had no idea I would like it as much as I do. It's beautiful, perfect for traditional style white cabinetry. Here are a few installed pics:

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If you click on the photos I believe it will rotate it to normal view. Here's 1 more:

LondonGray, I love your kitchen and the counters look beautiful! Did you do a kitchen reveal that I missed? What edge did you use on your beautiful Caesarstone London Gray Counters? Can you tell us a little more about your beautiful kitchen cabinets and hardware chosen? I love the placement of your microwave! Which microwave did you choose that goes on the shelf as it looks so nice? I love your floors. If you have time, can you tell us a little more about them. Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful kitchen with the very pretty couters!

What Lynn said! But I mostly want to know about your handles on the drawers, love them!

Thank you for the kind words. Sorry for the delay. Here is the short answer to some of the questions (I need to look up some specifics and reply in more detail later). Floor is Porcelain tile from Natural Timber. 4 ft long planks by 8 in wide. Purchased at Lowes. Bin Pulls and knobs are Schaub & Co. traditional collection I believe. Kind of pricey but solid brass, very heavy duty, and many compliments on them. Pantry and oven drawer handles are not Schaub I can't remember the brand. They are zinc and much cheaper but they are great also. Microwave is LG countertop, 1200 Watt, purchased at Best Buy and only like 170$. Its perfect so far, love it. Cabinets are from a local shop near Pasadena, CA. Paint is a conversion varnish custom to their shop not sure of the exact color. I will try to post some pics of the other side of the kitchen also...

Following up with a few more details.. Counter edge is Eased 1.5 inch thick. Quartz thickness was 2cm. Fabricators built up the edge to 1.5 inches with mitred corners. The mitre cut hides the seam totally. In CA this is a standard process. 2cm Ceasarstone will not properly cover the 5/8 inch plywood rough top the cabinet maker installs. I almost went with an ogee edge since the house and kitchen is traditional style. But I thought it might be too busy for shaker. The eased edge works well with shaker style. I chose ogee for the bath vanity where the cabinets and crown are more detailed. It fits perfectly in the bath. Or if you have a center island ogee is a nice choice on the island with eased edge on the perimeter. Alot of people opt for that...

The floor color is Natural Timber glazed chestnut. I used a dark brown grout but should have gone 1 darker to espresso or possibly black. The grout lines wound up lighter than the tile even though it looked like a good match before install. I went with 1/16th on the spacing, however the box recommends no closer than 1/8th. 1/8th grout lines are wide and the floor will look less like hardwood but I'm not sure if ignoring the directions will compromise my floor in any way down the road. I had the installer avoid "stair step" install method and tried to achieve random length install to mimic hardwood. Essentially when he got to a wall and had to cut a piece I had him start on the other side with the cut piece to achieve a random look. It worked for the most part but this process is tricky. It is better to be there the entire time they are installing so you can make the decisions.

I much prefer real wood. The white oak with dark stain pictured all over houzz are the most beautiful kitchen floors but with a 3 yr old it doesn't seem practical, I think it would have gotten destroyed. The wood plank tile is a nice alternative and the cleanup is very easy. Alot of people have actually mistaken it for solid wood. The finish is a matte. Every crumb shows but I'm assuming this is the case with any dark brown floor. One of the keys is finding the tile that is 48 in long, this is the same size a lot of solid wood planks come in. The tile that is 24 in long leaves too many grout lines all over the floor and compromises the wood look. The long plank tiles create some issues with install though, it is wise to have someone who has installed these before. The 24 inch pieces are easier to install.

This post was edited by LondonGray on Mon, Jun 16, 14 at 13:25

Hi lamki! This is an old thread so hopefully, you're still active! Do you remember if those pulls are Amerock kontur? How do you like them? Too industrial?

I saw these photos on Houzz so I thought it would look good..