Too funny! I'm in Vancouver as well and just finishing my white uppers, rift cut oak lowers, kitchen. Similar vintage house. We have new white oak quarter/rift floors everywhere on the main floor, but went with a darker ceramic floor tile in the kitchen. The oak of the lowers works well with the oak floors in the adjacent dining room. I think the darker tile floor works to break things up a little, in a good way. The counters are madreperola quartzite, with a taupe that picks up the tones of the wood, and greens that pick up the tones of the kitchen floor. Plain white subway backsplash that closely matches the white uppers. Overall, really happy. Hopefully I'll be posting pics in the next week or two. Having seen it, I can reassure you that the combo of white uppers and white oak lowers is gorgeous. You'll love it.

Circuspeanut, that's a really pretty color. Thanks! It seems that I could safely go in: a green direction a beige with gray/green undertones a beige with yellow undertones I feel much better about needing to do painted cabinets now. Since it wasn't in my original vision but a budget necessity, I was scared that it was going to change that original vision. Now, I can think of it as an opportunity to enhance it. So, my homework is to test the clear finish on a wood scrap and go countertop shopping with these finishes in mind. I'll keep you posted on the progress!

The blue tape is not nearly strong enough to hold up the hardware. I'm trying to figure out if 160mm (about 7 inches) pull is long enough for our 36" drawers. That's the largest size it comes in, before a 12" thick and beefy appliance pull that looks silly. But, it's the style and finish we like best out of the 20+ samples I have! We have five 36" drawers, three 27" drawers, and six 24" drawers. If we want longer pulls, we need to pick different hardware.

KT O, our bases are QS Oak, Shaker (almost 14 years old). I think thd rift is a more uniform look. Almost all of ours have the shimmery rays and flecks, which is a feature, not a bug. I actually think the kitchen Patricia posted is rift sawn. I wouldn't choose QS over Rift as a money saver. They're different enough that I think you should decide which grain you love, and if you can't picture the QSO, do the rift. (Have you searched through Kitchens under rift and QS. You might find photos. I don't know why I thought I saw slab QSO cabinets posted in someone's thread.)