Some Kitchen Ideas

We are starting to form some ideas for the kitchen cabinets and layout. We know we are going with a white cabinet with black granite counter tops. We are also leaning toward a door design that has squared panels (not the ones with an arch in the top). One option was to stagger the heights and depths of the cabinets. We think the staggered look is a bit more interesting than the plain look of having all the cabinets equal in size. Take a look at the difference below.

Note: The colors used in the generated images below are nothing like what we would actually have. The images are to illustrate the effect of staggering the sizes.

Above is the kitchen with plain cabinets of equal depth.

Above is the same layout with cabinets of different depths.

 

Decisions... decisions..  there is also some debate on whether to keep the furthest top cabinet that would be above the dishwasher. It seems to look appropriate in this layout but I'm wondering if not having it will help open the kitchen up to the adjacent living area.

There are also material choices to be made... do we go with solid wood or some sort of MDF? We are still in the process of talking with suppliers and getting samples in our hands.