I think I would paint it given that you have a lot of stained wood in the kitchen. Normally, I'm dead set against painting wood but, in this kitchen, I think it would look great, add some contrast & tie in with your island. And, we're used to seeing hoods that are different from the cabinets--metal, plaster, etc, so it's not like a painted finish would be unusual.

OTOH, you can always paint over stained wood so, esp. since you're leaning towards a stained finish, you could stain it for now, live with it for a while & paint over later if you decide that you'd like that look.

I'm not leaning towards a stained finish, but I know that appears so in my kitchen. I really wanted an ivory kitchen; however I've got pre-existing judges paneling in FM and BR (you can kind of see it in the full kit pic where the lower cabinet that wraps around goes onto the judges paneling), and it's an open floorplan. So I was advised by everyone to go for continuity.

I should clarify - I was advised by everyone to have stained cabinetry. I have been left to my own devices on the decision for the finish of the wood mantle style hood.

I appreciate everyone's opinion!!!

Paint it.

Ummm, what's the backsplash going to be?

Hi, BoysRUs. Overall, I'm a painted cabinet person myself and chose a mantle-style wood hood painted to match the walls around it, but I'd definitely stain the hood in your case. I can't really say why, just that, great as the white is on the island, between the cabinets on the wall doesn't seem right to me. I'd probably use some detail in the backsplash to echo the white and carry it over there.

BTW, I love wood cabinets when they are joined with wood paneling. It's going to look VERY nice!

The backsplash is going to be Artistic Tile Stilato's in the color Fig-Aro. Basically they're the long skinny glass tiles in varying sizes. Mine will be a green gray color with bone grout that matches the ivory of the island and run horizontally.

Ooooh, I misread/ misunderstood your question. All the same, I think that a painted hood would look fine. Here's one example.

{{!gwi}}

Your tile sounds lovely and perfect, BoysRUs. Looking at the picture of the handsome kitchen above, the white is very dominant and makes that hood a major star. So it seems a significant issue would be where you prefer your focus to be drawn--to the hood, to what's under it, or to the whole as a unit. And looking at the kitchen as a whole, if the hood were stained, would that area be strong enough to pull attention from the white island, or do you wish the island be the star? I'm thinking either one or the other should have more of a supporting role.

I think the painted hood would look stunning, and create a tie-in between the island and hood. Since they are along the same visual sightline then it won't look weird at all.

It looks like I'll have to get a stained hood. My GC thinks the big issue is that the hood is not a stand alone type. As it's connected to the cabinets next to it, the same height and connected with crown moulding, he is urging me to go with stained.

He also doesn't think I can have corbels on the hood mantel either unless I want that "mantle/shelf" to stick out 8" further into the room than the cabinets. A corbel-less mantle would only stick out half as much. My walkway in front of that cooktop area is rather small - about 38" between cooktop wall and island.

If I really want to paint something else in the kitchen to break up the stain, he will concede that I do it on the china hutch. You can see just the bottom section of it in the picture below. It's the cabinet box with granite on top - back left of the island. The top wasn't on it in this picture.

{{!gwi}}

Does this sound like a better solution?