Existing oak trim with new stained kitchen cabs?
So, I am a long-time lurker... but I have looked & looked on GW to find someone in a similar situation as mine when doing our kitchen remodel and I guess I'm a little odd. We are doing a full gut (except major appliances & only refinishing the floors). I like the oak trim in my house and my husband and I are not a fan of white cabinets, we prefer stained wood. We also don't like rustic or country... we are more in line with the "transitional" style when it comes to design. So... what to do? When we did our bathroom, we ended up painting the trim on all but the window white & it looks nice, but with a kitchen that is open to the rest of the house... I think painting just the kitchen trim white, isn't possible. So - I think we need to contrast the warm oak with the cabinets, right? We are doing alder (not knotty) and so are looking at maybe a medium stain (a few shades darker than it is now)? We don't have a huge kitchen - so I'm a little scared to go dark. Does anyone have oak trim in their kitchen and differently stained cabinets? We are also removing the table & replacing with an island (4'x5') that will seat 4... so don't factor table into design (it's a hand me down - not our style). Thank you for your help!
Comments (24)
maries1120
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agogwyndill
8 years agomaries1120 do you have photos you'd be willing to share? Yes - we have an L shaped kitchen - sounds similar to yours. I too looked a QS oak but wasn't sure of it looking the way I wanted. We are going with a modified shaker (I know people don't like that term). :) This is the door style we like - but not inset & obviously not painted.
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Matching oak built-ins to kitchen cabs?
Comments (12)@ Aine That ceiling is absolutely gorgeous too , just like your floors. I'm not trying to be mean, but that island has to go. Even if you changed the shape to rectangular, the cooktop still wouldn't be part of the main kitchen, would still be unsafe, would still be in the traffic lane, as hollysprings noted. AND you would still have to rework the floor . If you're changing the shape anyway, why not scoot it over to the peninsula. Then, instead of a cooktop and wall ovens, you could do a slide-in range. No matter what you do, you still need a range hood! Then, a mw drawer could go into a nearby base cabinet. Ideally, I would put the range on the fridge wall, but that could be more difficult for rerouting the gas line if you have no basement. By moving the mw and ovens from where they are, you would have a landing area for the fridge, along with an upper cab. for glasses and such. You could even relocate that pantry into the kitchen beside the fridge and have the dining room door in it's place. This would keep traffic completely out of your work area. Now, the cabinets in the family room. No matter what you do, IMHO, they will always look like re-purposed kitchen cabinets, with those angled units. What about a piece of furniture there instead, perhaps a bar with glass shelving above? Straight, not angled. Since I've already put in at least 50 cents worth of opinion, instead of just 2, I'm going to go for broke. I think that with that island removed, that sofa looks to be the perfect size for that space. For now, perhaps you could use the new furniture money toward having a functional dream kitchen and get your new furniture later. (that may have been $1.00 worth) This post was edited by canuckplayer on Mon, Mar 3, 14 at 16:20...See MoreNew kitchen-do doors & trim need to match cab's??
Comments (1)Door and window trim need to match other house trim not cabinets. Think of cabinets like furniture. They are separate from house....See MoreGel stain to take orange out of Oak Cabs
Comments (13)I wanted to do my kitchen cabinets to match my new wood floors, so I experimented with the bathroom cabinets and was glad I did although it didn't take long to figure out the best way to do it. Here's what I had before I started staining. And the floor I wanted to match This is the cabinet with all but one drawer done. It's not as red as it looks in this photo and the drawers don't have dark edges, probably because I took it at night and I had all the lights on and the flash. Close up of upper cabinet taken today showing wood grain The crown molding on top of the cabinet is new wood and did take the stain differently. It is red oak molding so the color matches but amount of gloss is very different. I also added trim around the mirror and couldn't find oak so had to use birch. It doesn't have any red in it at all and I wish I had stained it with an orangy oak and then used topcoat on both the mirror frame and the crown molding before going over them with the gel stain. I put three coats of gel finish over the gel stain but was still concerned that it might not hold up well around the sink with water dripping on it, so I experimented. I had the same cabinets in the garage so took a drawer and taped it into three sections. One section has the gel stain and 3 coats of gel finish. One section has the gel stain and 3 coats satin spar varnish, and one section has the gel stain, 3 coats of gel finish, and 3 coats of spar varnish. I put all the finish coats on with a rag so it wouldn't have brush marks. I was afraid the urethane might change the look but all three looked and felt the same. After they cured for a couple of weeks, I put a wet washcloth over each section and let it sit for 12 hours. Afterward, they all looked the same, except it did raise the grain on the section with 3 coats of gel finish, so I am going to go over the front of the sink cabinet again with a couple of coats of the spar varnish....See MoreExisting oak wood floors are too low to match with new wood in kitchen
Comments (5)You can put in a new floor in the kitchen and have it matched to the old one. It won’t have a patina but if done correctly blends very well! You can barely tell the difference between my 70 year old and 6 month old floors....See Morebadgergal
8 years agoI have golden oak woodwork through the my house. This before picture is a bit blurry.
We used natural cherry cabinets for our remodel. The oak trim around the windows is washed out in the first picture below. The bit of baseboard showing behind the snowman is a better representation of the oak trim color. I think the natural cherry plays nicely with the darker grain lines in the oak.
If you are going with a slightly darker cabinet color maybe you could refinish your wood floors to their natural color (no stain). Your floors aren't all that dark but maybe if they were even lighter it would help keep your kitchen from feeling dark. I know window blinds are expensive but maybe some light woven wood shades or light fabric Roman shades would also help lighten things up.
Good luck on your kitchen remodel.
funkycamper
8 years agogwyndill
8 years agomaries1120
8 years agogwyndill
8 years agogwyndill
8 years agomaries1120
8 years agomaries1120
8 years agomaries1120
8 years agoHere is the phot but not sure why it flipped. Sorry about that. I hope this is good enough for you to see the oak trim against the maple cabinets. And thank you for teaching me how to post a picture. Too bad it didn't work from my ipad - I live on that.
maries1120
8 years agoHere is the penisula we did where a round table was. There was a half wall between the kitchen and dining room that we took down. Sorry for the side pics! What is the secret to not having them rotate?
bpath
8 years agobpath
8 years agomaries1120
8 years agogwyndill
7 years agogwyndill
7 years ago
happy2b…gw
7 years ago
badgergal