I think he means that if you don't put molding of some sort at the base of the cabs, there will be a gap between where the wood ends and the cabs begin as wood expands and contracts a little with the weather. Same where the floor meets the walls. I'm not sure what you mean by putting in new baseboards after.? Where we have the white baseboard along the walls, we could have quarter round instead, but it wouldn't be my first choice. If he's suggesting quarter round for those walls, I wouldn't let him do it as you'll just have to rip it up to put in proper baseboards. Also, look at this wall where baseboard and quarter round meet. The baseboard went in first and the quarter round is butted up to it. Doing it the quarter round first would have made the baseboard install unnecessarily tricky. Our floor guy didn't do either the baseboards or the quarter round. He did the floor and we did the trim. If you have a GC he could do the trim. You'll want cab trim that matches, so you may have to order it and that takes a while. And, yes, stained trim for the stained cabs and painted for the painted cabs. Baseboard is usually painted a trim color before installation, so that is a whole other job. We also did our floor after all the cabs were in. In our case it was because it turned out that the footprint of the old cabs was larger than the new ones, so we had a 1-2" gap between the flooring and the cabs - not a good look. It works. The other way would be easier, but hey, who needs easy?

There are lots of different whites. I'm having medium stained cherry cabs, green granite, and sagey green walls. Stock white - like BM 01 or BM 02, which I have in other rooms, or Muralo White - just looked too stark. I took samples of my wood, wall paint and granite to a paint store - one that sells Muralo,Bruning, etc. They have designers on staff. One of them helped me pick a good off white for the trim, with no charge for the consultation. Sometimes these designers will even make house calls. I think the right shade of white or off white could be great with your cherry and oak.

With the open concept, I don't think it matters that one corner of one room has dark cabinetry. You can have light walls and backsplash. Which floor plan are you doing? I prefer the first tile. It looks like it's got gray and beige, which will be easier to work with than the peachy tones of the travertine. That's kind of a Tuscan tile, which was popular in the 90s and still, unfortunately, is hanging around in tile shops. My goal would be to tone down the reds of the Bordeaux by letting the granite be the warmest element in the room. Ideally you want to go look at slabs and bring a sample of both floor tiles and the cabinet doors. You'd want to pick a slab that has a lot of cream like this one.

Thanks for posting a photo, that really helps. With your kitchen being u-shape and smaller in size I would avoid very much pattern in your stone, it will look very busy. A light color like Colonial White will make the kitchen appear bigger. Since you have very little natural light you may want to avoid dark colors. I think granite or quartz are both fine as long as you like the look of the stone. "Heavy" or "Light" is more about the pattern and color not the type of stone. I just re-did my kitchen and it is very helpful to go to a local stone yard in person and look at the full slabs of stone before making a final decision. Even if you don't buy from them, you can get a better idea of the choices. The stone can look very different from the small samples in a showroom. I did this and ended up going in a totally different direction for my kitchen counters, different stone type and color. SO glad I did this! Be sure to take a sample of your paint, cabinet, backsplash and flooring (if you can).