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For the lighting, look at doing LED tape lighting. It's very DIY friendly, and you can place it behind the face frame to light up all of the shelves of your cabinets. And, you also need to use it for the needed undercabinet lighting. All of your choices are cozy, but darker. You badly need some light on the actual work surface. Under cabinet lighting will provide that. I'd do without a backsplash right now and anything else on the list in order to get that lighting done. You could do simple inexpensive fluorescents under the cabinets to save money to be able to do the tape lighting for the in cabinet lights.

Thanks for getting the pix directly on the site. Never posted before and was multitasking this AM and didn't take the time to learn how. I totally forgot to mention the under cabinet lighting. It's in the works, but we're doing it ourselves and just haven't gotten it up and running yet!

I love what you did with the stained glass! I've been looking for something creative and unique for my cabinets and you've inspired me! And beautifully executed. It would make me smile just to see it every morning.

What kind of wood are your cabinets? They really add warmth and character to your kitchen.

I think a Craftsman tile mural would be awesome and would love one in my kitchen too, but what I think I'll do instead is use less pricey field tiles and insert a few decorative tiles here and there, like the ones linked below. I like the bees :).

Here is a link that might be useful: Decorative tiles

Thanks! The cheapest way to buy stained glass online that I've found is to buy fireplace screens. Search them on ebay. The three pieces would lend themselves perfectly to a front door with side windows as well...for the application in my kitchen, there is only one other design that I've found that is symmetrical, so it would be the only other one I would use in my kitchen cabinets and light...since I don't want the light to have a top and bottom. The stained glass in the doors unscrews easily and the contractor made the light fixture so that the stained glass will slide out to change bulbs...so I'm actually considering buying this fireplace screen to change the look up every now and then. The tiles on that link are beautiful! I think I will probably do that...just some accent tiles. The wood is alder? adler? Contractor recommended for its rustic/visible grain. I love it.

Here is a link that might be useful: The symmetrical fireplace screen

Oh I like this other fireplace screen too, and I think the design and colors are closer to the Craftsman look you want.

How are the pieces in your cabinets affixed to the doors - did you use clips? I have glass-ready doors in several of my upper cabinets, and it was suggested that I use silicone to attach the glass once I get it. But, ever practical that I am, I wondered how hard it would be to replace the glass if it broke or if I just wanted to change it up as you plan to do.

Alder! Yes, it is beautiful and the stain you used really makes the grain come alive.

For the doors, there is a space for the panel to lie in, like a piece of glass lies in a picture frame. Then, the contractor just used screws in the wood, letting the edge of the screw heads hold the glass in place. I don't think it's secure enough...I'm going to reinforce it. I think I've figured out a way to backlight...and it's a really cheap way to go, so if it doesn't work, no biggie. I found soft white led strip lighting for about $10 for an 8-foot strand. I'm going to take a small piece of moulding (no more than 1/2" thick) and frame it around the inside of the cabinet door and stick the light tape around the frame, with the lights aimed towards each other and the center of the frame, then put a sheet of white hard plastic (maybe those ugly fluorescent light covers) behind it all, so the lights have something to reflect and diffuse off of. I'll definitely take pix and post if it works.

Good thought on using something to diffuse the light! Definitely post to say whether it works.

I found these clips online, which I like because they are adjustable.

Here is a link that might be useful: Glass retainer clips

Your ceiling stained glass piece should be reinforced. Gravity will pull it apart and sag in time. Recommend rebar for a horizontal application.

For the ceiling fixture I'd run fluorescent tubes around the perimeter of the box for backlighting, perhaps T5HO strips if you want it to kick out a useful amount of light. Ideally you'd want any lighting to be offset so you're not looking at hot spots from the bulbs. Be sure to paint the inside bright white. Unfortunately stained glass looks best with more subdued lighting, so you may want to add some cans or something for general illumination, and, as others have said, add task lighting for your counters.

Hi All,
Thanks so much for all your suggestions and help. I bought everything I'll need for the cabinet door backlighting and rigged it up with tape to see how it would look...it works great and the total cost for both doors was less than $50. It's a pretty easy installation, but I'm having a bad bout with a chronic illness and my husband just blew a lumbar disk...so we are a sad lot indeed! Whoever gets healthy first will do the installation and I will be sure to take step-by-step photos. It is LED tape, but will outline the glass, shining perpendicular to the glass on 1/2" x 1/2" wood strips that I've glued to the cabinets inside. I'm backing it with an almost opaque piece of white drop-in ceiling fluorescent light tile to increase the brightness...almost doesn't need it, but it will serve to protect the light tape and the stained glass and one $9 sheet was enough for both doors. You can't see the individual points of light at all that way but it's amazingly bright (will have a dimmer). As far as the ceiling light, thank you! The contractor said that piece will be fine without reinforcement, and I couldn't convince him otherwise. It is sagging already. Tell me about the rebar. It does have a thin strip of metal running across it width-wise that is attached to the frame, but not the glass itself. What about reinforcing with a piece of plexiglass...gluing it to the back of the panel? My experience with stained glass has been nil to this point.

Rebar is essentially what you described in your post. It is a thin strip of metal, maybe about 3/4" wide. It can be steel, zinc, iron, a metal that does not bend/inflexible. When used outside the glass, the rebar is placed on its side and is soldered to the joints/solder seams. Rebar from these materials can be challenging to solder since they don't take solder well. You can tin a thin wire (like a paperclip) to soldered seams to hold wire in place and then twist the wire to the rebar. I couldn't see any metal rebar on the piece, which is why I suggested. Where is it located? Usually it is fairly easy to spot since, especially in your piece there are not a lot of straight lines. Rebar can be unsightly since often it goes across the entire piece (in a straight line) and can be visible to the naked eye. Depending on size of the piece, there are often several rebars added (all going in same direction). One can see them in a lot of old stained glass construction, like in church pieces, etc. The preferred method today is to plan reinforcement during design stage and hide it within two pieces of glass during construction stage.

Did the fireplace screen come encased in metal channel framing around each piece? When screen was dismantled, was the metal frame around the pieces left in tack? I would think so, since each of the perimeter glass pieces are attached/soldered to the metal framing. Metal framing also helps keep the piece together.

I would not recommend using plexiglass. It's too flexible, so I don't think it would not buy you anything. The glass piece is much heavier than the plexiglass. Following your thoughts, a better option than plexiglass, *might* be clear glass. Glass doesn't bend, per say, it just breaks. HTH!

Okay, almost a year later I got these done! The sad thing is that it took less than a couple hours...life got in the way. If anyone is interested, I took pix of the steps for backlighting and can post them as well.

They look gorgeous

Shiny!!

Stunning! I love it.

keyc, would you still be willing to list the steps you used for backlighting. We are looking to backlight a stained glass dish cabinet in a similar fashion to highlight the glass and not the dishes and yours looks amazing!