design dilemma: choosing our appliances

About a month ago, I wrote about my dilemma in choosing between kitchen cabinets. Several of you have asked which ones we chose, and I’ve been coy, because the truth is . . . we’ve gone back and forth on this for weeks. To the point that I bought cabinets, brought them home, and then took them all back. Let me explain. Well, first, I supposed I should disclose that I am sometimes paralyzed when making big decisions, and this one seemed to paralyze me. We were trying to decide between three options. The modern: The traditional: And the white: I had asked for feedback because this property will likely be a rental n the future, and I wanted to put in something with mass appeal. I really liked the modern, but overwhelmingly the feedback on that one was that it looked cheap. So I decided against it . . . UNTIL. I went into IKEA one day and found out that the modern (or NEXUS, as it’s called) was being discontinued. I also found a number of the NEXUS cabinet faces in the as-is room, still in the package, for $2 or $3 each. I started buying them up, giddy with the idea that I could save some major bucks on the kitchen this way.  Then two things happened. First, I went to order the remaining pieces that I hasn’t found in the IKEA as-is room, and learned that not everything was available. I was able to piece together our kitchen with cabinet fronts, but I had to make a lot of compromises to make it work, including changing the shape of the island. I ordered it, though, and it was delivered and ready to go. Then . . . we finished painting. And our new house looked so completely different. So light and airy.  This is how it looked before: In-between: And now, painted with the wall to the living room opened up: It just seemed a shame to put such dark cabinets in the house that now seemed so light and sunny.  And it also seemed like a shame to compromise on the cabinet and island sizes I’d really wanted in some effort to use the cheaper brown ones. Mark had never been a fan, so when I mentioned I was thinking about returning it all in exchange for the white, he insisted. So we took the brown NEXUS kitchen back and returned with the white, just one day before the kitchen installer was scheduled. Indecision . . . it’s fun! Here’s how it looks now, with the cabinets installed: I LOVE IT. Now we are waiting on countertops and appliances. I’m using Whirlpool appliances again. We have them in our current home and I’m a huge fan. They work well, they’ve got great features, and the pricepoint can’t be beat. So when I reached out to Whirlpool and they offered to furnish our kitchen, I was thrilled. In our current home, we have stainless Whirlpool appliances. I love the look of stainless in a modern kitchen. We need mostly built-in cabinets and I wanted a counter-depth fridge, and all of those are available in their Stainless Collection. I think these are gorgeous. But something else caught my eye. Whirlpool has a new line of white appliance called the Ice Collection. They are white, but they are really modern. They’ve got sleek modern stainless handles, but the color would blend better with the cabinets and create a more seamless look. Here is how the Ice Collection looks in a kitchen with cabinets similar to ours: Nice, right? Which would you choose? Would you go stainless with the white cabinets, or would you go with a modern white look?