I have Oak floors and cherry cabinets. I also have Oak interior doors that we replaced because they were ugly builders grade flat panel. We did replace the trim because it was pine and in bad shape.

I have dark cherry cabinets and red oak floors finished onsite. Makes a nice contrast & keeps it from looking too dark.

In our new house, we'll have medium cherry cabinets and white oak stained in "Gunstock" for flooring. From viewing the samples, looks like a good combo. It'll be on-site finished, so we'll get to test a few stain samples before final decision, though.

Please don't ask for more pictures because the tide played with my camera - got it back but not working. Our 1825 house had replacement floors in 1914 - main rooms oak and bedrooms fir. The kitchen floors were way too gone so we had new quartersawn oak put in and finished on site. We also refinished all the floors on the 1st floor. All the floors just have 3 coats oil based polyeurothane on them. It's tough as nails - have had this finish on other houses lasting over 20 years. The cabinets are medium stained cherry. We're still in process - got to paint trim, walls, etc.

Natural Cherry cabinets and Oak floors:

Those look so nice. But I notice that the floors are lighter than the cabinets but still in the reddish family instead of like our oak which seems to be in the yellowish family.

Our floor is also peg and plank which I think will not give the right look in the kitchen. So I think we are leaning toward keeping the peg and plank in the family room and then doing a honed travertine in the breakfast and kitchen.

This is so exhausting... not like paint color decision. sigh.

alexamd, I looked for your lovely kitchen in the FKB and couldn't find it. I'd love to know what your kitchen counters are, please. (If you are in the FKB, please point me to your page. If you aren't, you should be.)

Sorry to OP for momentary hijack of thread.

My kitchen is closer to what you're planning-cherry cabinets with 5" wide "pegged" oak planks. It's even a great room. Side by side-my cabinets probably "don't go" with my floor. But as my room is set up-you don't notice it. I do have area rugs and runners covering much of the floor for protection from large dogs' nails. And the granite I chose goes well with both floor and cabinets as well as the existing furniture.

Yes, riverspots... that is more like what we have. And our cabinets are similar to yours. How do you think you would feel about your floors if they had round pegs in them? Also ours has quite a groove between planks (our planks are varied in width). Wondering if in the kitchen this would cause problems with collecting stuff.

Do you have other photos of your kitchen? I would love to see them.

As you have noticed, the problem with the cherry cabinets and oak floors isn't just the finish difference, but the style as well. Your oak floors with pegs are just too rustic for those cabinets.

Yes, that large groove would be a big problem in the kitchen unless you don't cook. I love wood in the kitchen, but I think tile is a far better choice for your situation. On your choice of Travertine, what kind of maintenance are you looking for?

Can you post some photos of the overall view of kitchen and breakfast room. It would help to see the space, but you should continue the floors and replace the carpet if it works together.

Okay...here is a photo of the family room. Previous owners mirrored over the mantel which we believe is rough cedar. We will be removing mirrors and it will become either wood or stone. Previous owners also removed a wetbar to the right of fireplace. We will removing Mirror and glass shelves and putting back the wet bar with glass front cabinets same color as kitchen cabinets (different style though) and some wine squares.

{{!gwi}}

Immediately to the right is the breakfast room and kitchen. The layout will remain the same though the peninsula will be shortened. window/door will become 8ft wood sliding door, cherry cabinets, ss FD fridge where current fridge is. Induction cooktop on Peninsula and stainless steel island hood.

{{!gwi}}

Haven't decided on whether we will use light or dark granite. Current breakfast table is cherry with cherry and black chairs.

These are older photos and I don't have a photo of looking straight at kitchen will take one tomorrow and post.

Thanks for looking and giving advice opinions. As far as maintenance goes, not sure. We do have 4 dogs but they are not in the kitchen and breakfast area too often.

Monkeymo- My floors are actually screwed down at the ends and the recessed screwheads covered with a wood plug-so it does have a pegged appearance. The plugs were stained the same color as the planks-some show up more than others. I don't think the "feel" of my floor is any more rustic than those silly faux antique scraped floors that have been trendy lately. The kitchen had been the only wood floor in the house when I bought it, but I've been installing similar wood floors using the same screw covered with plug method. The effect is no more rustic than if the 5 in planks were nailed. My floor is not grooved-but there is enough space between planks that stuff could accumulate. Hasn't been a problem. I would think that having open grooves would be easier to clean if something was dropped.

Reading your first post again, I picked up the cracked tile comment. Probably means your current subfloor has insufficient support for a tile floor-not rigid enough. Natural stone require a floor that's much stiffer than ceramic tile. You'll need to do a lot of reinforcement of the subfloor if you want a tile floor that doesn't crack. Travertines I've seen have been either too grayish or brassy gold to work with our colors-two exceptions being scabos and autumn blend-which I don't see for sale anymore.

I only have one other pic of the kitchen-I've been busy gardening and haven't finished up the backsplash, etc. It's roughly a 20' x 30' room with half for the kitchen cabinets and a half bath and the other half has the kitchen table and the fireplaced family area. There's a sliding door to a large deck out of view to the right. Fridge, sink, DW, wall oven and a closet/pantry on unseen wall to right.

P.S. The color combination of floor and cabinets looked fine before all those rugs went down. But my dogs do use the kitchen as part of their racetrack so... It might even look a little bland it the colors were too matchy.

Thanks for posting more pictures so we get a better idea.

In most of the examples posted, the cabinet finish and floor finish are close enough that they work well together. Your finishes and cabinet style are so completely different from each other that they do not work well together, especially in large amounts as would be in a kitchen cabinet floor combination.

Check on the subfloor problem before selecting tile. If you need to add to the subfloor, that would raise the height of the tile relative to adjacent floors.

The important thing here is that you have options at this point and want to make the best choices. You could work with those floors in the kitchen, but why not choose something that looks better and is easier to maintain.

Are you removing the soffits? It's a good thing to do while updating if you can.

riverspots - thanks for the additional photo. LOL...your pups have a nice racetrack! One of the tiles I was considering was the scabos because I don't want to be too grey or too gold.

Idrive65 - thanks for the photos as steff 1 pointed out most including yours have similar shades (floors and cabinets).

steff 1 - Yes, we will be removing the soffits and extending cabinets with crown molding.

We believe our tiles are cracked because they were laid over existing vinyl floor or subfloor with no hardiback. But that is something we need to check out. We are pretty sure our joist should support it though.

Another thing we need to find out is whether the peg and plank extend underneath the wet bar area. If it does not, this means we would have to push the cabinets forward which would cause the granite to stick out too much. If we can't resolve that then it would mean we would be taking up the peg and plank flooring.

Here is the link to my post in the home decorator thread about problem with multiple flooring with lots of photos of the various floors we have on our main floor - way too much variety

Riverspots--what granite is that? I'm searching for granite right now and like dark granite because I don't like light granite quite as well on cherry. However, yours looks like it'd be kind of in the middle of the 2 extremes. Hubby and I are stuck with each liking a different dark granite--maybe we need to find a compromise elsewhere ;-)

Thank you.

My granite happens to be Solarius. It was perfect for my kitchen-even the installers made comments about the combination. In addition to the cream, rust and rootbeer colors, there are flecks of black and pewter. It also has a lot of mica in it so areas of it will "flash" when viewed from different angles.

Hardiebacker alone isn't enough to stiffen a floor for natural stone tile. You might need to add floor joists, too. And at least one additional layer of thick plywood+ backerboard which will raise the floor level over an inch. I don't know all the specifics, but they're easily found at the John Bridge tile forum.

My peudo-pegged floor is not rustic. Informal, yes. Rustic, no. Monkeymo, unless you plan on using elaborately carved corbels or hood or have a crystal chandelier, your kitchen will most likely be informal, too. Incidentally, only half my great room originally had wood flooring-the rest was stained carpet. Which I ripped up and replaced with oak to match the rest of the room. Made the whole room look bigger.

Here is a link that might be useful: John Bridge tile forum

Lisa: I am sorry that I didn't see your question earlier. My counters are Antique Nordic Black Granite.