we just installed rift and quartered white oak throughout the house and finished with waterlox. the floors are spectacular. the linear grain of the WO is soft, yet varied, and the flecking of the quartersawn adds tremendous depth and beauty. Waterlox actually warms the none of the wood without imparting any noticeable color, and you can, if you like, add a little oil based stain to the first coat to add a little tint if you like. the WO has none of the agitation of face sawn RO, and feels much finer and older somehow. I live in LA, where red oak is common, and these floors are more beautiful than anything else around. so yummy you could sleep on them.

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.

North Iowa here.. What no one on this thread understands is there are no "green spaces" here. We have Habitat ReStore. We have Menard's or maybe Lowe's or Home Depot. Iowa people help each other all the time. Craig's list has junk. I did a kitchen gut 10+ years ago with Menard's hickory cabinets and laminate counters. No back splash. Existing Vinyl floor. Used my just fine white appliances. My house was built in 1880 so no open concept here. My kitchen is a room. A small room by comparison to almost all kitchens on here. I had a handyman who worked cheap. I had known him for at least 30 years so when I left for work I knew he'd deal with whatever came along. He was gone when I got home and I did clean up. I also did the gutting of the old kitchen; dead mice in the light fixture but he warned me about the potential so I was prepared. Maybe I was very, very lucky but I got a great kitchen for $10,000. I don't know what inflation would do to that price today. Compared to what I started with I now have a palace. You are a long way from final plans and I think you will do just fine. It takes a lot of price comparison shopping to get there. And shopping on eBay and Menard's sales. Don't over look the consignment shops. If you do Menard's cabinets wait until they have the 11% off. If you visit the cabinet people there regularly and tweak your layout, you will find people you really like and who like you and they will tell you when the sales are coming up. You can also make your own laminate counters for cheap. I didn't do that 4 inch backsplash thing and even though I didn't do any other kind of backsplash, I'm glad I didn't add it. Right now I have wallpaper but I'm thinking I might tile some paneling that's cut to fit so that if I get tired of it I can pull it off and put something else there.

Wow, those tiles will be stunning! Yes, great minds think alike lol. It’s nice we found each other, Houzz can be a lonely place when you aren’t doing a white shaker with marble look counters. There is absolutely nothing wrong with white and marble and when done right it’s beautiful- but it would be so so wrong with my house and my existing furniture and decor. My house is a 70s contemporary and since it has lots of natural stone, medium brown woodwork and exposed beams, the Mission style works very well with it. Having said that, I also thought a slavish reproduction of Mission/Arts and Crafts wouldn’t fit, but incorporating some of those elements was my goal. My parents were both antique collectors and a lot was passed down to me, so my decor is a lot of Mission but with some Empire, Eastlake walnut, and a few 60s-70s pieces thrown in the mix, in homage to my “contemporary of its time” house. My eclectic/eccentric style, for lack of a better term, isn’t something I see much in the modern HGTV world, but I often find inspiration in real estate photos from England, where I used to live, where being eccentric eclectic is a more accepted way of life :)