The kitchen is the heart of the home

I've heard it said a million times, the kitchen is the center of the home! Back in the day houses had kitchens that were completely closed off from the rest of the house, but today it seems that the more modern approach is a great room style. So, for our new house we chose to do a great room style with our living room, kitchen and dining all in the same open area. I have a huge phobia though with great rooms, I CANNOT stand when I have to walk through the dining room to get to the kitchen, to me the eating area has to be in a completely separate space. I don't know why I'm this way, but I am. I like more of an "L" shaped great room, with the dining room off on its own and the only reason to go in there is if you need to eat. OK, so the first room in our home that we chose to design was the kitchen. I have wanted white cabinets for years, but we have only had a custom home one time before, and that was before I knew I wanted white cabinets so badly. This time around I was pretty set on what I wanted. There's a couple of choices for white cabinets though, the modern style of stark white cabinets, a cream white cabinet (my sister has this and it is gorgeous)and there's the more country style white glazed cabinets when they use a stain to cover the white and make it very rustic and country feeling. I'm feeling more modern these days with the blues and greens and grey's, so we decided to go with the stark white kitchen cabinets and a black island. Our design center introduced me to my new favorite website, houzz.com! Pinterest has NOTHING on this website. It's where professional architects and designers put pictures of what they have done in houses, thousands upon thousands of awesome ideas. Here is what I found for an idea for our kitchen cabinets, island and backsplash, is that backsplash detail not amazing?! The counter top will not be black, it will be more of a lighter colored granite, the wall color will be almost identical and so will the trim work. YAY Houzz.com, thanks for sharing your talent and beauty with the world, I fully intend to take advantage of it!!

Contemporary Kitchen design by Huntington Kitchen And Bath Mountaineer WoodCraft