Leaded glass might be cool.
FWIW, I much prefer glass panels over mesh. We have dark antiqued brass mesh in the upper cabinets of our butler’s pantry, which is between the kitchen and dining room. The stemware in those cabinets needed to be rewashed every time we entertained because of dust, and our house is not particularly dusty. I ended up sewing gathered fabric panels and installed them behind the mesh. It was a low cost solution since I had fabric leftover from recovering our dining chairs. It looks nice, but I liked the rice paper patterned glass we had in a previous kitchen far more. For this house, I’d prefer a seeded glass.
Neighbors just put in etched glass…and it looks fabulous. Not totally opaque…but really you can’t see if the cabinet contents are a mess. Very light and airy look.
Etching glass is very easy to do, just lightly sand blast it. I bet one of the guys on your crew has access to a sandblasting cabinet. It was a shame they broke the huge piece of untempered glass window and tossed it the dumpster. You could have cut the panels from that, etched them and then the cabinet panels would have been free!
If you like the pattern of the wire mesh you can use a cutting machine like what scrapbookers use (I have a Silhouette) and cut the pattern in vinyl and apply to the glass before sand blasting, when you peel of the vinyl you’ll see that where ever it was applied will still be clear and un-etched.
I like these!!!
https://www.■■■■■■■■/listing/127043216/stained-glass-cabinet-inserts-clear?ref=related_listings
I have plenty of leftover glass still!! I have all of the tempered glass panels from old deck. But I don’t think those can be cut to size. If I remember correctly, tempered cannot be recut.
I notice the Etsy company makes Star Wars stain glass cabinet door inserts:) definitely a “what were they thinking??” design
Yes, you can’t cut tempered glass! But no reason not to repurpose the other glass!
I have to say that I don’t like the pebbled glass look.
I’m not especially fond of pebbled glass but I do like seeded glass and regular clear glass. Leaded glass would not be my choice for this house, although I appreciate it in other applications.
My neighbors have etched glass…not pebbled. It looks really nice.
We have seeded glass in some of our kitchen cabinets. I think it looks nice. You can still see the dishes inside.
Etched or sand blasted glass has a contemporary look so it won’t work in this kitchen. If I have to go with glass, it will probably have to be seeded glass to match the traditional style of the house.
My vision is to put a large block of black walnut on top of the pony wall as a ‘shelf’ type of thing. I would also like to have a black walnut butcher block counter on the long run of cabinets on the eastern wall. I cannot do it on the sink countertop and I don’t think I should do it on the stove countertop. But it has to be custom made, takes a long time to get made and will probably cost too much. One can dream 
That it sounds as if it would look great, especially on the pony wall, but butcher block counters are impractical to me because they can’t take much moisture or hard use. How about soapstone? Is that too expensive? Not the look you have in mind? Any thoughts on a honed granite or soapstone?
Probably will have honed granite in a light color, calcutta marble or the new quartz that looks like marble (more practical than the true marble). I think soapstone will be too dark, although i love it personally
Not really a fan of being able to see inside kitchen cabinets as I would therefore only be able to store about a third of the stuff I jam into them! This site http://www.cabinetglass.com/ shows tons of ideas for cabinet glass inserts. You could commission inserts that evoke the views: http://www.cabinetglass.com/preview.php?id=92 Or just a nice silvery gray http://www.spectrumglass.com/stained-glass/products/product-detail.asp?i=108 http://www.spectrumglass.com/stained-glass/products/product-detail.asp?i=229
Oh, seeded glass sounds nice.
Ranting
Today we are pouring the landing and some stairs in new garage. The concrete guys explained that they were having a concrete truck come and they were going to wheelbarrow in the concrete to the small areas. First I ask them why can’t they just mix the concrete from bags onsite? Oh no, we want the premix from the truck. I just let it go because I assumed it had something to do with psi strength or something.
Truck due at 10am and it never comes. Turns out the’plant’ is broken or something. So we have no idea when it is really going to arrive. I leave about 12 to go to bank and Home Depot. My guys break for lunch.
All along we have been continuously pointing out the new sewer line. They hit it with a pick ax where garage wall s formed while pulling off the forms. We have to do a difficult repair right at a turn into the concrete.
Today, before anyone can even see what is happening, these guys are backing a fully loaded concrete truck right over the main line in driveway that is buried only 4" below the dirt (waiting for new driveway slab above it). My carpenter sees it while having lunch and runs out screaming. Too late
We have to wait an hour for concrete truck to leave. Go out and dig around line and sure enough…completely cracked. This line is in use so I now have a new variation of a poop story. Luckily we are able to flush clean water down the lines so he can cut it apart and replace a section.
I am really mad and concrete guys are just shrugging “oh well, stuff happens”
Meanwhile we have discovered that the dumbwaiter shaft is in the wrong place and it is an error in the plans. Location in garage is not matching up with upper floors. The spaces upstairs are more important than garage. I spent 2 hrs down there analyzing and re measuring everything. We now are going to have to dismantle walls and push everything 6".
Thank Goodness we discovered this before we got upstairs and realized the toilet wasn’t going to fit in the bathroom!!!
Wow. You can’t relax for a minute, can you?
This calls for a “bless your heart.” And I mean it genuinely, not in the Southern dismissive sense. Hope tomorrow is better!
When they send you the bill, itemize and subtract out for time and materials to fix their screw-ups.