Mine are all light ,but I thought you would like to see anyways.
These are all photos from the time we were moving in so not everything was ready .
Ice.

Wow, beautiful! Looks great! We may go with darker floors and then keep the cabinets lighter like this. Couple of questions--

How did you do such tall uppers with horizontal grain? I've asked our cabinet maker about this and the sheets come in 4' x 8' with the grain running the long way--apparently it's not easy (or maybe much more expensive) to go with the grain in the other direction.

What is the inside material of your cabinets?

Im in Europe, Iceland to be precise ( Eyjafjallajokull if that tells you anything)
This vertical grain is very popular and no that we talked to had any problem making the door this way.
Nearly everyone has the cabinets all the way to the roof . Im sorry not be able to help you more .
Here is a photo of the inside .

Here's mine. The stain is 6% gray and looks from natural to medium brown/gray depending on time of day. If you are doing a paneled door, consider having the panel set horizontally. I wish I had done that, but I thought of it too late.
The last photo is an example of what it would look like.

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If you put "rift sawn oak" or "rift sawn oak cabinets" into the Houzz search function you will see many photos.

Many of the stained veneer wood cabinets that are made in Europe use rift cut oak. The grains are extremely even and linear, which makes it work with modern design easily.
Go look at pedini for example. try this...

http://www.pediniusa.com/products/kitchen/integra/index.htm

If there are any European cabinet stores in your town, you may want to go look at the cabinets and see if you like the look of the grain. Obviously, each company has its own finish.

Thanks all-- the even grain is exactly why we are going this route. I would like to go horizontal but architect advises against it because it is so hard to find a tall panel to end our fridge wall run with the horizontal grain. So the end of the fridge wall would need to be split into two pieces, since the sheets come in 4' x 8' section with the grain going down the length of the wood.

remodelfla--very nice!

Is that a natural stain?

What is the backsplash tile? (type/size) Also, what is the width of that drawer stack and how do you like having the top drawer split like that?

Thanks!

I'm doing a kitchen right now with rifted white oak. I will be running it horizontally. I have my veneer sheets laid up for me so a few sheets I have done 8 x 4 for the tall doors. There are several choices in oak for this look. There is rifted white oak both domestic and European, reconstituted rifted white oak, rifted smoked or fumed oak and many shades of Italian dyed veneers in oak and other straight grained species.
John

We have a clear coat on the wood...no stain. The backsplash is frosted glass in 4x12 (I think). We install a running bond patter alternating 1/2 and 1/3. It gives it a real random look. That is a 36" drawer stack. My induction cooktop is there. DH had to do some modifications on that stack to make the top drawer usable under the induction but it has worked out great for me. I keep my spatulas and "go to" cooking utensils there. Knives on the right and spatulas, large spoons, etc on the left. The middle large drawer holds my pans, and the bottom drawers my pots and lids. It's so convenient!

Anyone have any recent pictures with some darker, walnut color stains? I like the walnut color, but prefer the consistent grain of oak.

My cabs are QS oak with a darker stain. I love the lighter stains too but my DR furniture is antique QS oak and I wanted to match it somewhat. The QS has some rift sawn so hopefully it will give you an idea.

I used rift cut white oak with a dark walnut stain in my bathrooms. I posted them last June in the bathrooms forum. I don't know how to link it. Maybe someone can do it for you?

henrybuilt.com

and their lesser subsidiary

violapark.com

both have examples of rift cut oak on their sites. It is a beautiful, 'quiet' and timeless look, different from quarter sawn.

Thank you so much for the links!

nycbluedevil - here is the link to your threads. Your kitchen and bathroom are beautiful. It looks like you used stained walnut for your kitchen and stained rift cut oak for your bath. Beautiful!

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg1011163919891.html

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/bath/msg0622101018782.html

detroit_burb - those links are great!

I am really torn. We are stuck with clear coat, plain sawn red oak floors which are pretty grainy. We are going for a more updated clean line contemporary look with our ranch style house. My concern with the walnut cabinets is that the grain will compete with the grain of the floor hence the interest in rift cut oak as an alternative. But I really like the color of natural walnut - nice too that it's a little easier on the budget because we would just clear coat it rather than stain it. If we go rift cut - we would have to stain it to get the darker contrasting cabinet color that I think the space needs but it's more expensive and I wonder if it's too modern. Ugh. This is the decision I've obsessed about the most. Bathrooms were easy! Lighting easy! It's just these cabinets! Any thoughts greatly appreciated. I just saw this thread too which helped - but still I'm wondering about how it all works with the red oak floors.

Following this post too...

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread on rift cut oak, mid century and other options