A lot of what we're doing is mostly drawers, vs big cabinets. Indeed, one of the unspoken goals of the kitchen is "no dark pits". We have too many cabinets right now where there are things lurking in the darkness — not monsters, just stuff that was put there and is now invisible or hidden behind other stuff. So lots of stuff in drawers, including pots and pans and plates and the like.
We've decided on bamboo for the cabinet material (here's an example of kind of how it will look http://goo.gl/gN3ujc).
In other news, I think we've determined out the backsplash material (a checkered mostly-white tile), to go with the off-black-blue quartz countertop, though we still need to figure out a color accent (IMO) behind the stove. Appliance-wise, we've determined figured out our dishwasher (Bosch), but we need to settle on the fridge, range hood, and microwave (Margie has the range and the Miele convection/steam oven already figured out.)
Now, if we could get actual ground broken (or a schedule for same), we'd be really stying …
My wife and I will need to pick out cabinets for the new place soon so this is great timing.
You say you are going with lots of drawers. Does this mean your traditional large storage area will just be more drawers instead? I'm assuming that means a few extra large drawers too?
+Jon Weber Yeah — we have one set of 18" drawers, I believe.
But when we did some measuring, kitchen stuff tends to be a lot less tall than you might thing. One huge pot my wife uses is "only" 10" tall. A stack with all our dinner plates would only be a similar height. So drawers actually can work pretty well for such stuff.
We're helped by having both a basement and a nearby closet to stash a few oversized items that are rarely used.
We will have cabinets up above, and a large shelved pantry cabinet (though a bit smaller than our current one).
We've got a couple of those dark pits, especially in one particular corner. I wish we could afford to redo the cabinets, but there are drawer and rolling shelf systems you can set up within the existing cabinets, so I think we're going to go that route for now.
+Brittany Constable Definitely a worthwhile thing to do. Rolling shelves, lazy susans for corners, etc. We've been planning this kitchen remodel long enough that we didn't invest in doing that in the interim … but one of our mantras these days is, "Boy, I'm really looking forward to the day when …"
It's funny, we actually figured when we were house hunting that we'd have to redo the kitchen as a matter of course because we had a very specific idea of what we wanted. Then we walked into the one we ended up buying and said, "Or, you know, this." The previous owners just did it right before selling, so we figure it's good for a while. Black hole in the corner by the sink and all.
I remember when we had to do extensive repairs to our kitchen growing up. Living through a remodel is no fun at all. You have my sympathies there. It'll be worth it, though.
+Brittany Constable Yeah — it's something we expect to manage tightly, and we have a number of contingency plans to keep it from being too awful. Anticipate much kvetching about it later this year …