The floors are the same hardwood as the rest the house. Currently finished a medium dark color. They puzzle me a bit as the house was built in 1926 and the current kitchen cabinets are original. I would not have expected wood in the kitchen from that era. I wonder if they were done sometime later for some reason. Perhaps the orginal flooring (linoleum?) had to be replaced fairly recently? All the closets have cedar floors so I wonder if they raided the closet floors to do the kitchen? We are toying with keeping one wall of cabinetry (built-in Hoosier and shallow floor to ceiling cabinets next to it). If so we will have those cabinets repainted at the same time as we have new cabinets painted so they all match. The wood floors are neutral and barring catastrophe between now and remodel, we will keep them. Soapstone, if that's what we choose for the counters, could go with either blue or yellow (or white or a myraid of other choices). And I think if we go with a color on the cabinets and soapstone, I will keep the backsplash simple and neutral so it doesn't compete with the other elements. And all of that was to say there really aren't any color constraints based on the other elements in the kitchen. Yellow is so cheery and I find myself drawn to it right now. But I also like blue and wonder if I will find that more appealing in the summer. I am starting to plan now, but we are a couple of years away from doing the kitchen so plenty of time to ponder it. Love all the pictures and feedback. Thank you so much!

Your kitchens look awesome with red. I REALLY wish I could use that color, but because of the open floor plan, I can't. I do think the kitchens look warm and inviting. Alywa, your yellow is very pretty - it is bolder than mine and more golden!! I'm going to meet with a painter today and see what he says. I have bought soooo many samples of paint and just can't find the right color - creamy colors beige out and turn shades khaki, mushroom, peach, etc., tans turn green, and on it goes. I may just stick with the yellow at this point - "better the devil you know than the one you don't!" My cabinets are Canac - I live in Sacramento, CA and there just happened to be a showroom in a nearby town. Here is their link: http://www.canackitchens.com/index.cnc There prices were very good and they have a beautiful selection of cabinets. My cabinets have an interesting cut in each of the four corners that looks really sharp when two sets of cabinets are together - it forms a diamond shape. I don't have a picture of two sets together, but here is one set of cabinets with fairly good detail to view. The colors are more uniform than this picture looks, probably caused by using a BlackBerry instead of a real camera!! :-) Here is a link that might be useful:

Seriously, the only way to truly figure out what works is to go to the paint store and take every single white paint chip home and look at them in your space - in natural light during the day and at night. Bring home whites that look "yellow" in the store as well. This works for every color, but it's very important with whites. My trim is Behr's Pot of Cream (do NOT use Behr paint - but BM can match it), and in the store it looked totally not white at all - almost yellow, yet in my house all the whites that seemed perfect at the store were awful and Pot of Cream looked a true warm white. Note that the sheen will really change the look as well. My trim is satin, and I bought a dark grey-green for my new trim that SHOULD have perfectly matched the flat walls 2 shades lighter, but in real life it is a true green, no grey at all. I think it was the sheen because the chip looks totally different.

We have some sap wood and color variation in our natural cherry cabinets - the amount of sap wood (very pale colored) is pretty small. I think the color variation adds interest and texture and it doesn't bother me but I wouldn't want much more of the sap wood than we have. This picture was taken when the cabinets are about 6 years old and you can see the sap wood in the upper left of the right panel on the island and a bit on the bottom right drawer. The non-sap wood cherry has darkened but the sap wood stays very light: http://s113.beta.photobucket.com/user/cloud_swift/media/familyroom/fireplace-and-floor/IMG_0698-1.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0 The light area on the drawer over the door in your first picture doesn't seem quite as light as the sap wood in our cabinets so that may be just a lighter piece of non-sap wood that will darken with the rest of your cherry. Here is a closer look at the color variations in our drawer stack (taken when they were a few months old): Here are our family room cabinets - they have less variation, perhaps more select cherry - but I think we paid for it in the cabinet price. I think both looks are beautiful. The greater variation may age a bit better in a high use area like a kitchen - the more uniform, the more any little damage will show.