<p>Are you considering all the tiles in the picture? I like the subway in the herringbone pattern for the kitchen, but I’m not sure I can envision what you should do with the fireplace.</p>
<p>I’m afraid that I have to say that I would stick with white cabinets, and let the new owners add color with the wall paint. Especially since the kitchen is going to be fully visible from the dining room. What if they are people who like green or pink or yellow or warm colors? How would that look with gray and blue cabinets? Pretty bad, most likely. I’ve noticed that you seem to prefer grays and cool colors, but as you know you are not going to be the one living in the house. 
</p>
<p>I love old houses and kitchens are very important to me, as you might have guessed by this time, and I love vintage-looking white kitchens in vintage houses. But of course that is my personal taste. With the cabinets you have chosen, I would stick with subway tile. The other is nice, but seems perhaps a little too ornate, although it does slightly echo the shape of the niches…</p>
<p>I like the fireplace just the way it is, particularly the shape of the opening. Why do you have to change it? What part of it do you have to retile? Glass mosaic just works against the vintage charm of the house. And it imposes a color scheme and modern feel on the living room. Unless you want to rule out everyone who doesn’t want a very modern-looking house, I wouldn’t do it.</p>
<p>I like the arch brick work on the fireplace at the opening. But, I need to load a closeup of the stuff on the outside of the fireplace. It’s a mortar layer over the original red brick that has been ‘pressed’ (stamped??) to look like travertine. It has a brown peachy hue which does not go with our theme. I believe it has to be modernized with new tile over the fake travertine. I still haven’t decided on the style of the tile.</p>
<p>I’ll talk to my real estate agent about neutralizing the kitchen back to white Shaker cabinets. I’ll let her make the call on whether the pale gray cabinets might turn off some buyers. But, I have been looking at a lot of ‘vintage coastal’ kitchens on the Internet and they are all painted cabinets, and most of them with some kind of color whether it’s a pale blue, mushroom, seafoam green or pale gray. I am personally drawn to the cabinet colors, but I know that others may be turned off with a certain color of cabinets. </p>
<p>Yes, I personally design with cool colors</p>
<p>I love the grey and believe that grey has become a pretty standard neutral from the variety of HGTV shows I have watched during the slim viewing choices summer months. What would it look like to do grey on the bottom and white on the top? Are you doing an island? Could you get the pop of blue on just an island which could be an easy change for someone who has completely different preferences? I don’t remember all the orientations, but it seems to me the blue would be a wonderful pop with your beautiful vistas if there are good views from the kitchen. I think blue is coming on strong again after years of warm colors. With a bit of blue in the kitchen, someone could tie in the color to their living area with some blue and white plates or other ceramics and get a really good look, IMO. I guess I’m living vicariously since I have a white kitchen, although it’s only 2 years old and I love it </p>
<p>I like the idea of the gray lower cabinets and the midnight blue uppers very much. I think it will look neutral enough without being boring. BUT, I do have a question about the upper cabinets: In the design you posted, there are uppers only to the left of the cooktop, and then the skinny pass-through window underneath the cabinets. As someone who likes both lots of storage and lots of light in a kitchen, I’m wondering why you don’t either:</p>
<p>a. Put upper cabinets on both sides of the cooktop, OR
b. Put no uppers at all around the cooktop but instead put two big windows on either side of the cooktop, OR
c. Put uppers and a skinny pass-through window underneath on the right side, so there will be symmetry. </p>
<p>Pale gray is the new neutral. You will see that color in every newly designed home, especially as wall color. It goes with both warm and cool colors around it. It definitely screams ‘modernized’ when you look at different home designs. If you look at 10 homes for sale, the ones with the gray tones as the neutral are calling to the buyers out there - they just feel cleaner and nicer.</p>
<p>So, I have decided to take a risk with pale gray lowers - still thinking about the midnight blue uppers at the end of the kitchen.</p>
<p>To answer the very very good questions posted by Very Happy:</p>
<p>a. I was trying hard to keep the front part of the kitchen ‘open’ so that the kitchen didn’t seem so closed in because of galley style. There really is only 46" between these rows of cabinets which is very tight. The eye will travel further the length of the kitchen if we can keep the entryway open and not closed in. I was either planning to put some thin open shelving there or leave for buyer to configure that wall. Also, we have an issue with trying to install uppers on that side because most of that wall space backs up to the niche on the side of the living room opening. That niche will not allow the bottom part of the upper cabinets to be screwed into the wall and we would only be able to screw in the top of the upper cabinets. The newly rebuilt niche in the living room outweighed having uppers on the back of the wall in the kitchen.</p>
<p>b. There are two huge windows on the other wide of the kitchen which are going to let in a lot of light. The only reason the small window is on the left side is to provide a pass through to the dining courtyard. Otherwise, the cook would have to walk around to living room and go out the French door. However, this little ‘extra’ might get lost as the budget runs out later. The window to the left of the fireplace is going to turn into a nice little French door. Also, there isn’t really symmetry for opening up wall on left and right of that cooktop… most of the wall to the right backs to the living room - not the courtyard. </p>
<p>c. Cannot put window on the right side - not enough room to pass through to courtyard. We’d be passing through the niche in the living room </p>
<p>I think mostly what people want these days is to not have to lift a finger after they move in. So it is important to pick colors that most people can live with, because no one will want to repaint or change anything.</p>
<p>Gray might be trendy right now, but in a few years people will be turning up their noses and wondering what you were thinking. I have a bathroom in my first house, which is now one of my rentals, which we did in gray back on the '80s when we lived there. Now when I go in there I just shake my head… it did not withstand the test of time.</p>
<p>Of course, it only needs to remain popular until cb can sell it…</p>
<p>My mother had a gold-colored Armstrong floor in the kitchen in the 70s that used that funky tile shape as the pattern. That’s probably why I don’t like it.</p>
<p>Yes, we all have to remember that it is not my kitchen - I have to appeal to the largest buying market for the lowest possible cost. I sometimes get caught up in trying to make it my dream kitchen or my dream house. The pale grey tones are very popular right now but they could be outdated 5 years from now.</p>
<p>I think that the pale grey is fine, because it can be paired with almost anything. It’s the grey and blue that seems too restrictive to me. On the other hand, white/cream is classic and always will be. :)</p>
<p>Love the idea of turning that window into a French door.</p>
<p>The area to the right of the range looks perfect for a nice pot rack. I wouldn’t worry about losing the pass-through–although it’s a nice idea, because that is probably where the microwave will go, unless they want to look at it from the DR.</p>
<p>Could you put a raised partition at the end of each side of the galley, to hide the stuff on the counters while still preserving openness? , </p>
<p>cb, now I understand. It’s those pesky niches on the LR side that I haven’t really been paying that much attention to. Now that I understand, I vote for losing the upper cabinet and just putting open shelves on one or both sides of the cooktop.</p>
<p>And I think the gray is terrific. Go for it.</p>
<p>I’m really enjoying following this thread. Thanks so much for continuing to post updates and photos. </p>
<p>Yes, pale grey is a popular color at the moment. Of course there may be buyers who want a color that is less trendy (such as white). I don’t care for the grey arabesque tile; something about that particular grey does not appeal to me. Greys can be warm, with taupe tones, or cool, with blue or green tones. The type of grey will influence what other colors pair well with it. I prefer a grey that leans in either of these directions to a grey that appears to be derived from black and white alone.</p>
<p>Here’s a photo of a kitchen from Gardenweb that received a lot of attention from blogs and the like. Its white arabesque tile looks gorgeous with the white cabinets. Note the grey walls, and the chandelier that’s somewhat like the one that came out of the HH!</p>
<p><a href=“Beekeeper's Wife -- Question about your kitchen”>Beekeeper's Wife -- Question about your kitchen;
<p>I’m not sure what I’d do for tile around the fireplace, though I’d probably choose something matte. Are you familiar with Houzz? You can search by key words and browse photos to find looks you like. Houzz can be a big time waster, though!</p>
<p><a href=“Beach Condo Retreat - Beach Style - Living Room - San Diego - by FF Properties Design Group | Houzz”>Beach Condo Retreat - Beach Style - Living Room - San Diego - by FF Properties Design Group | Houzz;
<p><a href=“Boise Residence - Contemporary - Living Room - Los Angeles - by Hsu McCullough | Houzz”>Boise Residence - Contemporary - Living Room - Los Angeles - by Hsu McCullough | Houzz;
<p>I love the shape of the brickwork. Can you just leave it and make the rest of it plain?</p>
<p>I LOVE the little dancer figurine with the blue top… she shows such abandon! When you find out more about the figures, let us know what you learn! Thanks for sharing this process with us. Love to watch the transformation.</p>
<p>I like Consolation’s idea – leave the row of bricks along the edge and plaster/paint the rest of the fireplace to match the walls.</p>
<p>I had white cabinets so does almost all of the houses in our subdivision… I’m not a fan of them. I had them replaced.
I would go with the grey and the blue. </p>
<p>Thank you Zip, for finding Beekeepers kitchen on GradenWeb. I love that tile and think maybe the tile in a near white with gray grout might read more neutral than the same tile in gray. I agree that gray is becoming what warm Tuscan neutrals have been. I love your choices. My only quibble, despite how few uppers you have I keep remembering design classes that say dark colors down, light colors up. Will a few marine blue uppers steal the show, and not in a good way?</p>
<p>I love the kitchen on Gardenweb - I only wish we could have an island in this kitchen. Then I could go crazy with my midnight blue. If I remove the uppers that are to the left of the stove I am really going to have to find a place for food storage - some kind of pantry storage. I have plenty of deep drawers for pots and pans, just need handy storage for dry foods.</p>
<p>To the left of the stove is a 9" spice/condiment pull out. To the right of the stove is a 9" tray divider for cookie sheets and trays. The uppers were going to be for plates and glasses. </p>
<p>Need food storage somewhere. Maybe swap out the uppers and lowers at the left of the stove for a thin tall pull out pantry? It cannot be too wide because I need landing space on both sides of the stove</p>
<p>The arabesque tile is white - same white as the Gardenweb kitchen in the link</p>
<p>Consolation OMG!!! I love the fun chandelier in your Houzz Beach Condo link. I wish I could get my hands on that chandelier - it would be a real statement piece for selling this house. </p>
<p>It would be very difficult to try to get that faux limestone mortar off in a smooth texture to repaint plain white around the arched brickwork. My lead told me that if we start chipping at that thick mortar on top of the red brick, it will never come off cleanly and will become a bumpy uneven nightmare. So, we would have to drywall texture over it (more mortar on top of the mortar) to try to get a smooth texture. Either way there is still the big ‘lip’ where everything sticks out from the other part of the fireplace. It’s going to take a lot of research to figure out how to address this fireplace (research looking through Houzz!)</p>
<p>Well, shoot about the fireplace planes. I thought from the photos that the brick might stick out farther than the “travertine” so a skim coat might be used over it. Here’s the info for the designer of that beach condo. I’d hope she’d be willing to tell you the source or at least the brand of the chandelier. I was in a hurry and didn’t check all the photos in the link – sometimes there are questions with answers on Houzz with the details.</p>
<p><a href=“FF PROPERTIES DESIGN GROUP - Project Photos & Reviews - Park City and San Diego, UT US | Houzz”>FF PROPERTIES DESIGN GROUP - Project Photos & Reviews - Park City and San Diego, UT US | Houzz;