Ok folks, continuing the eternal conversation about my blue door :) My husband and I had another conversation about why we each felt the way we do, and it helped us both understand better. His thoughts: We have a beautiful home that we have put quite a bit of money into improving, but mostly adding to. We are finishing our basement, and instead of throwing up drywall and carpet and calling it done, we have finished it just as nicely as the rest of the house. Wood floors, wainscoting, custom cabinetry, etc. To him making that door any color that wood does not naturally have cheapens it. So to him it would be like putting cheap formica countertops in a custom kitchen. He also grew up in a home with very nice wood trim, floors, cabinets and built ins that are stained golden honey. While he doesn't care for that color, in his home you respect the wood, and painting wood that nice defeats the point of having wood that nice. My thoughts: I love blue. I love French Cottage. I love the blue and the stone together. I think it would draw attention to our door and enhance the beauty. Blue is a happy color for me. Most homes built in the last at least ten years in my area are brown stucco and stone (just. like. mine.). I hate having the exact same thing as everyone else. I like to be unique (though not be weird just for the sake of being different). I also love color. I come from a place where houses aren't all the color of dirt. So after this conversation we are both reconsidering our positions and the thoughts of the other. I agree that paint would be a mistake because it would cover the natural beauty of the wood. But watered down paint that shows the grain and knots but still gives the color, or blue stain could be really beautiful to me. So does a blue door cheapen the look of everything else?

olliesmom - thanks! I like the MW English Chestnut also, and we're using that to stain our wood floors. Since I wanted the doors to be darker, I used a custom mix of MW English Chestnut (1 part) and MW Dark Walnut (5 parts). To test the custom mix, I bought the small cans of each stain and a piece of knotty alder (cut into several sample pieces). Using a plastic spoon and paper cups, I made several stain mixes, starting with one part each and working my way up to the 5 parts of Dark Walnut to 1 part English Chestnut. Then I tried each mix out on the pieces of wood to see which I liked better. Once I found the right mix, we bought the larger quart sizes to stain the doors. After staining, we used several coats of a sealant (with UV protection) in a satin finish.

Pearl1976, Thank you so much. My countertops are nearly 19-year-old corian. I was planning to update them, despite the fact that I love them, but after the dark cabinets were done, I'm thinking seriously about keeping them. They are so easy to maintain and go with everything, despite my busy dishes and whatever season or holiday I'm decorating for. I do want to get an undermount sink and will check into that. If they can't do one and leave the corian, then I'll consider changing them. Otherwise, I'll add the undermount sink, find a nice backsplash and call it done.

Well...since you want stained cabinets, one has to ask what is the style of your house and how will the interior design be executed? There's a lot more to a sensible answer to your question than simply playing spin the bottle. For example, if you are going to have a lot of stained interior wood throughout the house, besides the kitchen, then there's some consistency in having stained wood cabinets. On the other hand, if most (or all) of the trim in your interiors is going to be painted, but your cabinets are going to be stained, you have a situation where your kitchen is going to contrast and stand out against the rest of the house. I have Alder cabinets, and the doors have various knots, holes and textures. The cabinets are finished in a middle value brown finish, with black hardware. It looks OK, but it's really not my favorite. Too rustic. Too brown. Perhaps those qualities will fit right in for your interiors. Good luck!