IMO all white perimeter with a different island seems to be the thing right now . I would need to see your kitchen and are refinishing your cabinets or getting new? I personally like all whaite kitchens with perimeter counters in something quite plain and a show stoppper island counter insted of the cabinets being different. But I need to know a lot more about your style and the kitchen layout. I happen to love walnut so a walniut counter for the island would be awesome. Please do not do anything espresso ever.

Will add photos of the layout... the design isn’t changing as we are taking down walls and have taken everything into consideration for what I need. We are totally redoing from scratch. I like the simplicity of the design also. Ignore the colors as I originally was going dark (not that dark though).... I love the white quartz top! The last pic is from an app I was messing w to see lighter counter tops...

I don't always agree with Patricia but in this case I absolutely do. :)

If you like a darker wood, use it for all your cabinets and go with lighter counters to balance it out. Two toned cabinets are definitely the thing right now but a quality wood cabinet is forever.

I was originally going with the look which shows dark cabinets on top in picture one. I love the contrast and I am doing a lighter floor. My designer has geared me towards the Silas stain on cherry or alder as in the second picture. I love it all and can’t narrow it down. I want something timeless but I also gravitate towards natural, earth, warmer colors.

I meant maple. Walnut is out of my budget. I also want the shaker style. I like clean look and contemporary. Want timeless but not the trend now with the smooth flat cabinet doors. I don’t find that attractive

If you want timeless, do not do that grey-toned stain, or the unnaturally single-toned dark brown above it. This top pic is along the same lines as the one above but the marginally lighter stain is better to my eyes.

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I don't like these counters but the stained maple is very pretty.

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I first was going with this look....I like the top one.

The larger piece is Silas on cherry... it’s kind of a grey tone also but reddish... that’s my floor & possible backsplash with the wood sample. That’s the color I’m the second pic. What do you think? Would that work as an island and lighter surroundings?? Or still make bottom surroundings same as island (less to clean) and uppers lighter to brighten the space more?

Oh, that's not quite as grey as I thought from the other picture above. It's nice and I think it looks good with the lighter floor. I'd wait to pick the backsplash until you decide on countertops and they are actually installed. You'll have far less choice for counters and you don't want to get locked into even fewer options because your married to a particular backsplash. Also, the mosaic tile like that is kind of "out of style" right now, if you care about such things.

@jessica federspill I love your choices. Its going to be beautiful

i like Jessica's idea of darker wood on island and lower perimeter cabinets and white or light on upper perimeter cabinets. Would rather see walnut or a darker, more rustic wood on all lower. anything with red in stain is yesterday. I would go more brown for dark woods. Nice layout! What 3D- visualization software did you use? Thanks.

It’s called Home planner and it’s very user friendly! An app. The nicer layouts are from my designer.

I agree with mosaic backsplash but I love this simple neutral look. I feel like everyone’s does subway tile’s so that’s why I don’t prefer them. Maybe out to date but I like it with white....

I LOVE walnut mixed with white uppers! I am deciding between having stained wood lowers and island/white uppers - or just staining the island (or maybe paining island if I can’t find the right stain color).

I think it depends upon the kitchen as to how to correctly mix the lighter and darker cabinets.

What about maple? Walnut is a bit out of my price range. Isn’t it a lot more $ I believe?

I love mixed kitchens!

These were all installed in the last 2 years

I made my comment about loving walnut because you listed it in your original post. I completely understand that walnut is $$$! I think that you can use maple instead - we just need to find the right stain for you!

I’ve been working on my kitchen update for awhile. Originally, I was 100% set on doing two tone kitchen (lowers and island - stained w= white uppers) with a natural looking wood

My kitchen update had to be postponed due to some health issues. Unfortunately, I’ve now become more confused! I still LOVE white uppers with stained lowers/island - BUT - now I’m also looking at medium and darker stains - in addition to “natural” wood.

So - the question is - what color stains do you like?

Last week, I ran across a blog where they paired a white oak island with painted cabinets - Farrow & Ball - Railings. Initially, I thought it was a shade of black, but it’s really a very dark navy blue. So. . .now I’m thinking about painting my island w FB Railings - and maybe still doing a natural looking wood lowers/white uppers. Their kitchen doesn’t have uppers along wall, but since it’s painted white (w white tiles) - it seems like white uppers would work. Now - I know that there are people who will hate the idea of having two paints + one stain - but - there are a lot of three toned kitchens that I’ve run across over the past year. I think that using stained wood is more of a neutral - like when someone uses a wood countertop - assuming that the stain color is either natural (raw looking) or a neutral color.

In this photo, you can see the navy All of the others looked more like black.

I’m thinking that maybe I should just move into their house vs. going through a re ovation at mine!! Their ENTIRE of home is BEAUTIFUL! They used a couple of other F&B paints in their home on cabinets - I didn’t really consider paint until seeing these. I would rather use SW/BM in order to be able to have a professional paint finish - but I haven’t found any that match the color of Railings yet.

Let me know which stain(s) you like and we can try to find some similar maple cabinets.

Okay . . . So . . .it appears that I’ve LOST MY MIND! I read your post, and then was distracted for awhile. When I came back, I COMPLETELY FORGOT that you had posted stain colors right at the beginning - and even posted a photo with an actual door sample!!

I apologize! I got carried away looking at all the pretty stain colors!

I like the stained door in your photo. I don’t really like the Silas stain on the cherry cabinets. I’m not really fond of cherry kitchen cabinets in general - with that being said, my neighbor across the street has an extremely nice kitchen with custom cherry cabinets. She expanded her kitchen and installed the cherry cabinets probably back in 2003 ish. Her kitchen still looks beautiful today. She has done interior design work before - and she clearly knew what she was doing back when she did her HUGE kitchen renovation in order to make it timeless.

I may still look at some other stains while you’re deciding what you’re going to do. . . LOL!

Haha! That’s the hard part! I can’t decide! I tend to gravitate towards darker wood colors but want a timeless kitchen also. My house is all fall colors (my favorite season) but that includes oranges/ reds. So I think I want to make this space lighter but I love the contrast of darker island (possibly lower cabinets also) My floors are light. Would the cherry Silas look too grey? Adding pictures of colors I gravitate towards.... many say they will be dated though so I’m trying to be more open minded with other options.... which is why I’m now considering a lighter (not necessarily white) wall cabinets. I do like a grey/ blue also but want to love my kitchen still in 10+ years:)

Hmmm...if you really love the darker wood, what if you went toward a flat-panel, push-to-open cabinet style, with no hardware? Or some grainy walnut, or an interesting dark, grainy laminate to give an updated look?

And if you end up wanting light upper cabinets, what about some creamy, grainy laminate?