the kitchen cupboard conundrum

This is the style that our kitchen is going to be, but there won't be any top cupboards.

Mr Piggy and I have decided on a brown tile floor. I'm sure it will end up being a mocha or cocoa or frappacino, or some other caffeine-based beverage colour (they all seem to be), so now we are confused...what to do with the kitchen!!?? I don't think we should go dark cupboards because the kitchen is in a little nook without its own window and I don't want it to be a proverbial black hole. We need something that is going to reflect light, not suck light. We may end up getting a skylight once we move in, but thats not the point...we need some light!

We have a few standard colours of Caesar Stone and Essa Stone to choose from - so we are trying our best to choose from the ones we don't have to pay extra for. I was leaning towards a white benchtop, but I went for a read on the net and found people saying on blogs that although the Essa Stone and Caesar Stone is in the high 90% non-porous, it is judst enough to leave permanent marks on the stone. These stones are not natural, they are man-made so they can be porous to a degree. I am a little concerned by the poeple that say they have permanent red wine stains etc. Scary.

So it seems we have chosen our stone - Mr Piggy likes dark stone (but not too dark) so we are choosing Macchiato in the Essa Stone. (So you see my joke now in the caffeine-inspired coulours... ;)

Just listen to the Macchiato description... "A mellow coffee tone with cinnamon and cocoa fragments creates a warm and comfortable look" hehehe - the marketing department impresses me... I want to eat it! Its a brown that verges on a dark tan and it doesn't throw any yellow when artificially lit. I like that.

So now, what cupboards to use in a kitchen with brown floor tiles and a brown bench...

This brown benchtop is quite similar. I love the white cupboards in the kitchen area and I love that you could also laminate the other side of the bench in any colour you want - like a brown to match the rest of the area!

The benchtop on top of the white cupboards looks devine! (We will have handles on cupboards though...and remember - no high cupboards...)

The drop in sink looks good (thats our standard so hooray for the standard!)

The underbench sink is nice but I have a feeling...too $$.

Also, if you were going to have an under-bench sink, you would need a drainage area for dishes, so you would need to grind a bit of the Essa Stone - which would be extra $$

Pity it looks so modern, sleek and fab... :(

White does look fine with the benchtop. I am really liking the feature dark colour above the prep area on the wall. I know this is cupboards and we won't have any, but maybe we could paint a bit of a feature or something?