TR, milk paint has always captured my interest,so I will look at that. BP: Gosh, at first I thought those were your kitchens, then realized. Nice pics and thought provoking. GD, that is really the issue here, how much yellow would be too much or would it matter, being that high up on the ceiling. PW: love your beadboard island. Oh my gosh, I can see why this forum is addicting and now the choices. Better made with lots of opinions though. Say, most of y'all don't use your real name on this forum yet it doesn't seem "stalker prone", lol. Well, too late now. Interesting though. Thanks, will keep thinking and hoping that others will chime in. Of course, the floor color will make a difference too. Ellie

wow, thanks for all the help! I can see that the different adjacent woods look good in your posted pictures only because they are quite differentn from each other, not sure that I want to go too light on the new wood because it would be to "blendy" with the white cabinets. A border is an interesting idea but my kitchen might be too small to be able to pull that off, I have an approx 10 x 13 U shaped kitchen with an adjacent 10 x 8 breakfast area. I appreciate the comments to consider that the lighting in the kitchen might be quite different from the hallway. That is true but I did not think of the hallway as being dark until we had the flooring changed and it surprised me how much darker it was after the flooring change. I'm going to find some dark brown tarps to put on the kitchen floor and see what that feels like. thank you!

Thinking on this but my first thought is not to do black cabinets. And, don't worry about "floor fatigue" so much. It's not like you'll be standing for hours in a kitchen like a restaurant chef. I have porcelain wood look tile and I don't notice the "fatigue" of a hard floor. It always looks best to have the flooring the same throughout so nix the idea of changing the flooring from the living space/kitchen space. The floor plan you show is too small to see details. I'm thinking if you are going concrete floor, mix the cabinets with natural wood look and a light counter...maybe a white quartz.

The kitchen needs to play well with the elements of the house you are keeping like floors, existing trim, other rooms, etc. do you have some pictures?