Cabinets and Counter tops

We met with another cabinet guy on Wednesday. This was the guy one of our contractors work with and wanted us to see. He suggested that we look at the compact cabinets because they only take a week to come in. The problem is, it only comes in one color and I kept looking at it and thought, this is not what I want, I didn't hate the color, but it wasn't beautiful to me either. So we picked out a couple others for him to price that take a little longer to come in but with a style and color that I liked better.

But this got me doubting myself and wondered if I really liked the ones we saw at home depot or was I just compromising because they were so much cheaper and could pick them up right away. So I asked Brian to take me back to home depot last night to be sure. We need to have this nailed down by the first of the week. When I laid eyes on them a second time, I still loved them. The color is just what I want, not that light oak, but not too dark either. It is like a honey/golden color. Here is a picture.
It is funny that Brian both like these best of all when this would be the cheapest way for us to go. We both think we would be really happy with these. No, they do not have all the special gadgets that go inside like the pull out drawers, but after Lowe's quoted us $7000.00 for cabinets alone we thought we would definitely have to get laminet counter tops, which we both really don't want, and still be over budget! So after talking about it, we would much rather get cabinets with out all the gadgets and splurge on the counter tops. Almost everyone I talked to said that is a very wise thing to do.

We are probably going to get Corian, although we haven't completely decided. We like the quartz stuff better but it just depends on the pricing. We are determined to stay in the limit that we have already set up.

I like the light brown colors with darker brown speckles and Brian likes the darker colors for counter tops. A guy at our church does countertops so he brought us some samples on Wednesday night and we actually found a darker color that we both like called "burnt amber". So I thought that was a good comprimise, it still had the browns that I like but darker that he likes. Plus a few people have told me a darker color would make the kitchen pop more with the lighter cabinets. Then our friend emailed us last night and said the darker was much cheaper. Isn't it funny how things work out sometimes? Here is a sample. Last night I was talking to our Loan officer and he laughed me about something and then he said, "You are probably the most efficient client I have worked with." I was like ok, this could mean I am really a pain in the behind and he's telling me in a very nice way. So I said something like, "Am I driving you crazy?" He told me no definitely not that I should take it as a very nice compliment. Then he told me that the other day his processor couldn't find something and he told her to "Call Janelle, she'll be able to get it in 30 seconds. She knows where everything is." And then when I gave her the info he said he started to laugh because his prediction was true. It made me feel good that he told me this. I know I am very organized and a planner by nature but it made me feel good that someone recognized it as a good thing and hopefully I am not driving him too crazy with all pre- preparation and extreme organizational personality!