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Rating: 
Summary: The finest kitchen design book I have ever seen.
Review: Designing a kitchen is an excruciating task for most homeowners. The restrained and often stale design palette of most kitchen designers compounds the difficulty. Far too many "dream kitchens" are nothing more than expensive appliances attached to row upon horizontal row of bland cabinets and continuous work surfaces. Not only is this is esthetically uninteresting, but these modern designs are often not fully functional and detract from the spatial beauty of older homes. John Grey dares to be different. While decidedly modern in material choice and functionality, his kitchens evoke the flavor and visual beauty of older kitchens. The book is superbly illustrated with examples of his work. Mr. Grey's book is a passionate treatise on how to create a stunning yet fully functional kitchen interior. His ideas are provocative, among them a banishment of upper cabinets and a mixing of lower cabinet styles and height. The book is not a "how-to" book, it has scale drawings and colour pictures, but its focus is on the principles and not the particulars of kitchen remodelling. The audience of this book will be those who desire something different and special in a kitchen. It is an essential read for anyone planning a kitchen remodel and is of particular importance to those who have older homes.
Rating:
Summary: A new way to think about kitchen design.
Review: I am a professional cabinetmaker and designer. Johnny Grey's book opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about and designing kitchens for the way we use them in our modern lifestyles. It is easily the most inspirational book I have ever seen on the subject. I fully recommend this book to anyone in the trade wanting to take a fresh look at their craft.In general, cabinetry from the big mass manufacturers are inadequate to fulfill Johnn'y ideas, because his whole design philosophy represents a new paradigm not yet integrated into our general culture. Therefore I do not recommend this book to the average homeowner wanting to remodel their kitchen unless they have a reasonable budget and can think creatively. And oh, yes, you are willing to establish a working relationship with an open minded cabinet maker skilled at custom design as well!
Rating:
Summary: A new way to think about kitchen design.
Review: I am a professional cabinetmaker and designer. Johnny Grey's book opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about and designing kitchens for the way we use them in our modern lifestyles. It is easily the most inspirational book I have ever seen on the subject. I fully recommend this book to anyone in the trade wanting to take a fresh look at their craft. In general, cabinetry from the big mass manufacturers are inadequate to fulfill Johnn'y ideas, because his whole design philosophy represents a new paradigm not yet integrated into our general culture. Therefore I do not recommend this book to the average homeowner wanting to remodel their kitchen unless they have a reasonable budget and can think creatively. And oh, yes, you are willing to establish a working relationship with an open minded cabinet maker skilled at custom design as well!
Rating: 
Summary: Expensive cabinetry - big kitchens
Review: The biggest difficulty I had with this book is that nothing is standard. I guess that's the whole point. However the majority of the kitchens in this book require custom cabinetry. If you can do that yourself, you're in luck and this book is for you. However if you do not have a $30k budget for cabinetry to store your food and dishes then this book will do little to help you design your kitchen. The kitchens shown are mostly huge with a few exceptions and even the exceptions are using tens of thousands of dollars of custom cabinetry. If all you need are ideas of what is possible, browse through this book in a library or bookstore. If you need real life examples of what can be done with a small to medium size kitchen on the same size budget, forget this book. It won't help.
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