I'd prefer to match or coordinate the cabinet hardware with lighting than with the appliances. The appliances and faucets are functional, and the stainless and chrome are classic, acceptable colors...Kind of like wearing a white t-shirt under a sweater...It's there, serves a purpose, and acceptable in that color. The lighting and hardware are more like jewelry. Maybe a better comparison would be a stainless/silver colored watch (basic and functional) worn with more decorative colored necklace and earrings.

We have an open floor plan and are mixing antiqued bronze with brushed nickel. I was advised that it was fine to mix the two, but to not go MORE than two, if that makes sense. And the lighting consultant told me it was fine to do the aged bronze in the living and dining and switch to a more modern in the kitchen because you're defining it as its own space. Now I ended up going with Tiffany art glass in the kitchen, so the metal finish on the lighting was less of an issue. As I think of it, it is dark and keeps with that antiqued flow. I would have had no qualms going with brushed nickel if the fixtures I liked were in that. I did do a brushed nickel fixture in the laundry room (same wall color as the main area) and it looks really cute. For us, the brushed nickel picks up the brushed aluminum (same look) of the door knobs around the house. So like I said, we ended up with two metals and as long as I'm repeating one or the other, I'm not worried. As far as the cabinet knobs, well... For the hutch in the dining I used a satin nickel or pewter or something, I forget. The dining set is cherry and the kitchen perimeter cabs will be cherry, but I wanted to distinguish them. I think I'll probably do dark knobs in the kitchen. The island will be white/glazed, and I know I want to do dark knobs there. I think it would even be fine to mix them up, doing nickel on the perimeter and antiqued on the island. I'm probably not going to do that though because I have some decorative knobs (sentimental value) that I'm going to bring in. I'll probaby just keep it simple and do all antiqued and be done with it.

Our stove is stainless with black top and the other appliances black. I figure the stainless stove repeats that silvery nickel color found around the house. So I say you can mix it up, but make sure you are REPEATING something enough that it looks intentional, not isolated. The other thing I read is that if you're going to mix contemporary and antique, to mix them in equal doses. I think if you do an ENTIRE space with all matching fixtures and exactly the same, that could get pretty heavy. Ours is ok, but only because the art glass breaks it up. If we had done all matching fixtures over the kitchen, living and dining, that would have been too matchy-matchy, not very interesting. I'd definitely feel free to break it up with some color or another metal, so long as it's one that will be repeated in the space.

Good luck! :)

we decided on two colors for all the lighting and doorknobs/cabinet knobs in the house. antique brass (doorknobs, many of the light fixtures) and brushed or satin nickel (kitchen and bath light fixtures, kitchen knobs. any lights or knobs that do not coordinate are slowly being eliminated (this is DIY remodeling). mudroom attached to kitchen has antique brass hooks (a lot of them) and kitchen has the nickel...but they are coordinating better now that other colors have been removed. HTH kren