Kitchen Color Scheme

I've waffled on what seems like a daring scheme. I was reading an interview with an interior designer recently and she spoke of how designing was a process of trial and error which was to be continued until you found the right combination. Well most of us don't have the luxury of time or finances to take her advice and we certainly don't with this house. My dilemma with this kitchen is three-fold. First, we were able to save the existing granite countertop, but it is brown. It's not what I would chose and I have to make an extra effort to keep things clean and sharp. Secondly, the entire living area is open, so whatever I chose in the kitchen is plainly visible and part of the look in both the dining room and the living room. Lastly, my idea, as you'll soon see, runs into a bit of a kink with the construction of the cabinets around the refridgerator. See the lovely picture to the right that Robyn so kindly provided? Similarly, my original idea was to paint the lower cabinets Benjamin Moore's "Flint" and the uppers my white trim color, but I've been a bit scared and have since thought I'd tone down my gray to something much lighter and paint all the cabinets that color. But since the painters have painted "Flint" around the fireplace, I'm again in love with the color. So I'm back to plan A, but would appreciate your feedback. I've been scouring magazines and the web for photos with a similar color scheme, but can only find it in kitchens with shelving uppers, not full cabinets as we have. Do you have a photo you could contribute to enlighten me? And now to my biggest difficulty with this idea. As you can only somewhat see from the photo of the kitchen, the cabinets wrap around the fridge and become uppers, blending the otherwise neat delineation between upper and lower. I think my only option is to have Luke trim the side fridge panel so that it has an upper and lower panel and paint them accordingly. It will be quite a stark contrast that is not tempered by brown granite like the rest of the kitchen, but I could do a grouping of prints on the upper panel to soften the look a bit.

The floors were stained over the weekend and the carpet went in upstairs and it's all coming together quite well (pictures to follow soon). Perhaps now that clean-up has begun we can convince Oliver to move into the house as he very firmly only wants to live somewhere that's "REALLY, REALLY, REALLY CLEAN". (Imagine that in a very American accent with practically no letters but "r"...."rrrreee" basically.)

This blog is a bit of a mess currently, so bear with me as I make changes to the look, content, etc. Blogs are not yet my forte.