Ooooooh, I am such an organizational freak, I love these kind of articles . . . thanks Luvs! As for using drawers to store dishes, I do this in our new kitchen (we had a complete gut and redo in Sept.'07). I love the convenience and find that my dishes are easier to safely pull out and put away in the drawers. I also keep my extra flatware with them in these drawers, as they're doing in that one BH&G pic. But, the Scot in me keeps me frugal, so I use empty large yogurt containers instead of a specially made box for mine ;^P Each of my (2) deep dish drawers holds two sets of dinner and salad plates, plus a stack of bowls or b&b plates. Another drawer holds many of my bowls. I also keep all my pots and pans in drawers, too. Out in my dining room, I have four pull-out trays in my built-in buffet. Two more sets of dinnerware are on those, along with as many accessory pieces as I can fit there. The trays are nice, but I like drawers better. Their deep sides keep dish stacks from sliding backwards off the trays when I try to access them. I think the one BH&G idea of skinny pull-out fitted with containers for flatware is brilliant! I have two wider ones under my cooktop, but they're for oils, vinegars, jars of flour, sugars, etc. I wouldn't give up mine, but in redoing a kitchen, I can imagine finding an extra 8 or so inches for a flatware pull-out . . . if you wanted to spend the money for it! Personally, I'm very happy with my yogurt containers. But, despite the organized drawers and trays, I really need ideas on how and where to store all the rest of my tablescape stuff . . . thanks to all of your bad influences here on this forum ;~) I'm off to go read more! Lynn

I need some advice. I have a 9 ft ceiling. What is the standard height for a tower with crown moulding go up from the ceiling? The cabinet is sitting on the counter? How high should the Tower go up on a 9 foot ceiling.? This in looks dwarf to me. HELP!!! The left pic is the extra height I’m thinking which the crown moulding is right at bar on my lighting. The right picture is the one I think is too short it I’m not sure.

Satisfaction. Why is that such a hard thing to acheive? I have a giant debt of gratitude to my husband and my maker that I had the opportunity, even if just once, to do exactly as I pleased in a space, and if I think about it long enough, I'm humbled that I get to focus on something that can be argued to be so frivolous in the grand scheme of things. I can only say that because I'm probably the worst offender of the question you asked. I fretted so much during the process that I finally had a friend order me to "STOP LOOKING" at all design publications, online or otherwise. I'm a creative producer by trade, so it was hard for me to separate the need to be cutting edge vs. the need to make this something I could love for 20 years if need be. Did I make some choices I regret? Yep. I'm already wondering if my exterior countertops are too "of the moment grey" and the implication of what that will mean with the passing of the grey renaissance in approximately 5-7 years. I also am certain antique brass hardware is going to be the rage in 2-3 years. If I let myself go there, I'll be practically paralyzed. So, I'm just going to QUIT LOOKING and be satisfied. Yep, I went into safetymode on some things... but luckily for me, in the Deep South, some of my more cutting edge flirtations were so out of the norm, they were price prohibitive. And the more I think of it, I'm glad my current kitchen was price prohibitive for me 10 years ago... otherwise it would have been a giant concrete block with no grace but lots of street cred ;)

Thanks for the ideas! Unfortunately we do need it for the sink. We discussed swapping it out with one of the unplanned base cabs, but they are all bigger and really throw off the layout of everything. I don't want to paint the cabs (they are natural cherry and high quality, so pretty in person), but I love the idea of making it look like a free standing piece next to the stove! I could really play around with that as far as colors, etc. Hm. We also have all the corian that came with those cabs. It's too expensive to fabricate for the whole kitchen, but if I did the freestanding hutch type thing we could just have it fabricated for that... Hm. a 28" ikea cab would fit there nicely and could be painted. Or we have a 30" in the basement that I think can be repaired... The ikea cart was another idea floating around my brain. bmorepanic - you kinda lost me on the first paragraph ... oh, unless you are talking about the backsplash? That's a pretty idea! Thank you! More ideas floating around in there now ;)