Love this! My kitchen is basically dark cabinets, and blue pearl granite, designed for my husband, and all men really like it; floors are dark wood, too. I think you will be have more than enough variation with the way the light will hit the different surfaces, but I would still ask the pros at the lighting stores to see if you have maximized your flexibility with the three kinds of light. Include dimmers. Be sure to install your under cabinet lights close to the edge of the cabinet and not to the wall, and have plenty of can lights over each shoulder where you will be working, including the sink and stove. Think about the handles on your cabinets -- a repeating theme. If they are knobs, you might want to add a contrast perhaps two different styles. Consider also that you have a floor surface that will add another texture/color/reflective surface. Even with my dark kitchen (contrast with mica in the granite and stainless steel appliances) we chose black and navy blue textiles for the floor rugs and kitchen towels. Perhaps you will find yourself in need of adding accessories with different color splashes that change with the season, but you may also like to stay with this sophisticated pallet and add more and more shades of gray or white. Take a look at the slate gray pearl air popcorn popper from Cuisinart. Or you could look to Crate and Barrel and Sur La Table for RED!!! Or Green, Yellow, Turquoise. Remember that food has color, too. And you can add texture/color with window coverings, paint. Your kitchen will also look great with some black frames for photographs in black and white or color, perhaps tinted black and white photos. I did add a large gold ceramic plate to pick up a color in my drapes in the family room, but I am not at all reconsidering the decision to stay with just two colors -- mahogany/ blue pearl. It's like a forest in my kitchen, peaceful.

yvonne.. re sanding cupboards I had mine professionally sanded because they were looking worn. timber is American Oak and it really didn't lighten very much by sanding. so depending on your timber you might not achieve much. i would change a few upper cabinets with glass doors, white perspex or remove a few doors, paint the back of shelving and hang wine glasses or whetever and break the load that way. I replaced my range hood with a pull out chrome one and that in itself made a difference nt tying in with the chrome handles. see pictures. maybe you could paint the legs or reupholster the stools to white...all part of the kitchen.

Now that's a cook's kitchen, are you keeping all appliances along with benchtops. You said that you were keeping the same footprint, if the base cabinets are still in good condition would you keep them as is and just replace the wall cabinets with Bunnings paintable shaker style in a soft grey and paint the walls the same colour, still keeping the oven cabinet in Beech. At the moment your kitchen has a lot of great stainless steel and wonder why the bronze cooper splash back, trend?, I can see by the photo that the kitchen is a bit dark, so perhaps a mirrored splash back would reflect more light and would look great with the stainless benchtop and the soft grey. If you are not keen on the mirror for the splash back and breakfast bar the white tiles could be replaced with French Country white and grey tiles Beech wood looks great with greys and black & white. I would look at replacing the Stools, Kmart have $25 dollar stools, different colours Lighting, an easy cheaper lighting is to use track lighting as you only need to have the one connection, tracks can be joined and placed in any shape or position where light is needed, like over the sink. You can use both spotlight and pendant lighting with these. PLEASE replace any open corner shelves with cabinets. This would be very cheap to achieve, good luck

if possible swop the entry and garage stairs to walk up to a view through the gallery and away from the master entry... enclosing underneath the second level stairs and extending the wine store wall adds extra space to the pantry, wine store and mud room and some extra space counter next to the fridge for wall shelves or storage for display or glasses and counter for serving wine ...the side of the up-stairs could have open railing with underneath enclosed to allow alternate arrangement for the powder and ante room with an extra door to separate the laundry and powder room from the dining area (with extra soundproofing insulation around the toilet)