Hi, I have been looking to find a thread like this. I wonder if anyone can help me. I am definitely losing sleep over this issue. We live in a ranch and are redoing our kitchen as well as continuing the wood flooring of the kitchen into a fireplace/ den room which connects to a living room as well as into the dining room. We are getting painted white/cream cabinets with Delicatus white granite. I love the look together. My question is whether to go with a whitewashed, handscaped white oak floor or a dark taupe color wood floor (both look great with the cabinets and granite and both have no yellow or red which would not go with the colors in the room). I know both would look great. I kind of always pictured the floor of the kitchen as light, and the light handscraped/ whitewashed floor is kind of ranch-like. But, I am hoping that I will be able to create enough interest with different textures and some darker harmonious tones in the room, because I don't want the room to look too monotone. Also, I know that the dark wood would probably pop more and look more sophisticated. I am not sure, but I think the dark would may give the house a higher resale value in the future, because it is trendy and sophisticated. We have not picked out most of our furniture yet, so that will be decided once the floor is decided. Helppp Pleasee if you can!! : )

ok, my 2 cents . .. use the darker of the 2 and heres why. When a room with medium to dark wood in it (chestnut would be a darker colored wood) is painted a pale color, the wood looks dark and miserable. I am sure you dont want to hate your cabinets. When the same room is painted a medium tone, or a dark tone, the wood becomes lively and interesting. always paint a color whose value is no lighter than the value of the light part of the wood grain and youll end up not hating your wood.

Thanks! The competition so far: We've painted samples of Valspar Redstone Dining Room Gold, Benjamin Moore Marblehead Gold, Valspar Harpswell Green and Valspar Hubbell House Golden Maize on the same area. The Harpswell Green was an early favorite based on scores of swatches, the Redstone Dining Room Gold looked EXACTLY right when wet in the sample jar, and the Marblehead Gold had tested well in isolation, though it was curiously neon-bright. The Golden Maize, which we had thought too yellow but threw in as an outlier, is emerging as a favorite, with Marblehead Gold a close second. Not sure whether we really didn't want as much green as we thought we did, or whether the side-by-side effect makes the green look much greener than it would in isolation. There is a lot of sage green in the oriental rug and the sofa, and so we want the walls to be complimentary but not too redundant with that green. Samples of the Ellen Kennon colors are on the way ...

Ikplatow - That's so nice of you to offer! Thanks! I've heard IKEA is a fun place to hang out. I did think about road tripping it one day but I just looked on mapquest and it's over a three hour drive. ..... For now, I'll focus on painting and the bed. :) I'll probably change my mind a bunch before I settle on curtains. I would hate to get down there and see others that "could work". I'm known to return things and that wouldn't be an option in this case, lol! I really do think it's ridiculous that you can't buy certain things online. I was just at Kirkland's site the other night and was considering ordered wall sconces but NOOOo have to go to the store for them too. That would also be a trip and a half.