Mamadadapaige posted some great modern pulls from Mockett on another thread which would work well with your Italian cabinets. Here is a link that might be useful: great pulls

Both walnut and rift sawn oak are gorgeous, so I don't think you can go wrong with either. I have walnut cabs, have had them for about 3+ years now. I've been very happy with them. The grain is certainly the show piece of the kitchen. As cat_mom noted, they do lighten with age. I recently had a walnut island done for the kitchen, the new walnut is a fair bit darker than the older walnut. I would classify natural walnut as a medium dark rather than dark. I will try to take a picture tomorrow if you like.

Install drawers. Best thing I ever did. Bottom drawer holds all cleaning supplies, plus dishwasher tabs, wipes and paper towels. Middle drawer has parchment paper, wax paper, tin foil, plastic wrap, and a variety of plastic bags. Top drawer has a supply of extra blue scrubby sponges...still in their wrappers. You can see where my contractor cut away the center of the drawer to accommodate the pipe, and built a frame around it. So convenient! Oh, and we installed a water sensor with alarm...just in case.

@tozmo1: Budget is around $10k (so much more I have to do in the house, that I have to go pretty minimal everywhere). I will be refinishing the floors (but have it budgeted outside of that $10k). I was told by the first contractor in the house that the floor refinish couldn't do anything to decrease the red, which did sound incorrect to me, but what do I know? My initial thought was to paint all cabinets white with the white countertop and do an emerald green subway tile backsplash (we can DIY paint and backsplash tiling). Weirdly, after too many hours to admit of looking through inspiration photos, I started leaning away from the idea of all white cabinets and back to keeping the cherry cabinet colors. @Beth That last pic you posted is the first I've seen with cabinets, counter, and backsplash similar to what I was thinking! Other pics are amazing, too. You're my hero of the day. Unfortunately, this is a vacation house and I will be in it only 6 weeks to spruce it all up. I live out of town, so can't live with it a while and then decide. I have to just go good-enough as best I can. It will be rented the rest of the time, so the main reason I'm struggling is that I'm a quite eclectic person in my tastes but really want whoever else rents this house to love it as much as I do. So looking for the intersection of broad appeal and something I also love. I think more neutral with colorful accents is the way to go. And I'm definitely going to look into glass cabinet fronts (if the quartz countertop and new dishwasher don't eat my entire budget... Floor refinishing is different budget..).