Any wood floor can be decorated to achieve a desired result. Of course, it is best to choose a wood with the grain characteristics you prefer, but if hickory is what you have to "tame" then finishing to tone down contrasts can be done.

Don't give up - grays and beiges absolutely can intermingle. There are some lovely inspiration pics online. One could say I have a beige house - all beige carpeting and beige walls and the sofa and loveseat in my formal room are also beige! I was determined to update things a bit with some gray, and with some trial and error I found some colors that worked. It was difficult because I can't repaint the entire beige two story open concept interior, but for instance I was able to add gray pillows on my beige couch that look beautiful (my neighbor wanted to know where I got them so she could do the same thing with her beige couch) and some gray and white curtains that match the pillows and look lovely against the beige walls. Okay, it'll likely be different for you, but I found SW Functional Gray for my dark gray shade and BM Revere Pewter for my light gray shade. I found for my house, the beige paint made all the grays I tried pull blue, if that makes sense (and yes, they are separated by pure white trim). Those two were the first couple I found that still at least looked gray, even if they didn't look at all like the photos on-line. Hope that makes sense. So just keep trying, and beware of undertones! My neighbors ended up with a purple house because they didn't take the undertones seriously when they chose their gray. The cloudy skies where we live seem to make the undertones come out. The other gray house on the block looks green more often then not for the same reason.

Alabaster white is not white, white and I worry about paring it with a slightly darker color as it could make the alabaster look dirty. My suggestion is you do the cabinets in a high gloss finish and use alabaster on the walls in a flat/matte. The difference finishes would look spectacular. For the adjonng room, I would stop with the beiges/tans…too much of the same, and do a gray (as in your counters),

@JustMe Here is a rough drawing with dimensions of the office. My desk is on the longest wall. The window at the bottom of the drawing. My desk is about 72" and I've been seriously thinking of getting a different wood desk top that is smaller at about 63" to fit on that wall space next to the door. Something like a mesquite desktop or something. My desk is a standing desk so I'll be keeping the black base. The reason why I didn't put my desk against the window is mainly because of the giant monitor that is on an arm that wouldn't let me look outside anyways but I'm open to options. I do really think that my desk is way to big though. Also, the closet(which is at the bottom left of the picture in case its hard to tell has built in bookshelves. Although shelve space is always good, I've been looking at tons of wall shelves to utilize the vertical space more. I also added some more offices I liked to my profile. I'm a big fan of the contrasting natural colors and I want to incorporate live plants and such as well.