Which wood would you chose?

[mike waters]

Which wood would you chose for kitchen cabinets?
i am reallly stuck on this.
it does not have to be one of the veneers pictured, I mainly uploaded the pictures to show color of floor

[Yonak Hawkins]

mike, this is a wide open question so I'll shoot from the hip : Do you see that taupe-ish color swatch to the right of your foot ? I'd choose that color for your cabinets.

[Alan Lilly]

#2 is the one I would choose. No doubt. :)

[mike waters]

#2 is the one I would choose. No doubt. :)

The one by my foot?
edit: oh, the one on my hand! That is teak. I was liking that one as well. I think it might be too heavy in that room though. May be ‘too brown’ overall. Sort of like walnut.
there is a lot of cabinetry in the room. 16, 30inch wide base cabinets.. then 200 linear inches of wall cabinets

[mike waters]

mike, this is a wide open question so I'll shoot from the hip : Do you see that taupe-ish color swatch to the right of your foot ? I'd choose that color for your cabinets.

Yep! The makore! I was leaning towards that as well

[Bradley Gray]

Leave it up to your wife...happy life.

[Joe Spear]

I like the makore.

[Jim Becker]

Of the choices offered, I also like the Makore the best. What you have to consider is that you have a very "busy" floor, so you have to be careful that your cabinets don't compete/clash with that. You may also want to consider a solid painted color as an alternative.

[Jamie Buxton]

So the one thing you know is that you have white oak for the floor. I'd pick a cabinet species which is fairly far from that color -- either darker or lighter, but not close. Me, I find dark kitchen cabinets overbearing unless you have a very large room. If you have a more normal-sized room, lighter would be better. I'd look at ash, finished with just a clear coat -- no stain. You can get rift ash, with the long parallel lines of your sample veneers, or you can get flatsawn ash, with its distinctive cathedral patterns. Or you can have both -- for instance flatsawn for doors panels, and rift for door frames. (I suggest ash for esthetics, but it is also way less expensive than teak.)

[mike waters]

So the one thing you know is that you have white oak for the floor. I'd pick a cabinet species which is fairly far from that color -- either darker or lighter, but not close. Me, I find dark kitchen cabinets overbearing unless you have a very large room. If you have a more normal-sized room, lighter would be better. I'd look at ash, finished with just a clear coat -- no stain. You can get rift ash, with the long parallel lines of your sample veneers, or you can get flatsawn ash, with its distinctive cathedral patterns. Or you can have both -- for instance flatsawn for doors panels, and rift for door frames. (I suggest ash for esthetics, but it is also way less expensive than teak.)

Excuse the mess and ignore that walnut 4x8 you see haha

I did not consider ash, yet. the room is very large the kitchen is open to the family room and dining room
1300 ft.² total
i was leaning toward makore, but pheraps I should check out ash.
Teak is definitely out now.

What if I used quartersawn Ash for the uppers
And Makore for the base cabinets and the islands


My only concern about going lighter is that the house is already so cold feeling, because there is an extremely large foyer and the dining and family room are so open

[Julie Moriarty]

Whatever wood you choose, be cognizant of the woods competing with each other or there being so much wood they blend in with each other and you lose definition between the floor and the cabinet. We ran into that recently and invited neighbors to offer up opinions. Some pointed out that with wood floors, wood cabinets and live edge slab tops, it becomes too much and overwhelms the eye.

[Mel Fulks]

Jim and Jamie give reasons for their choice ,and I agree with them. The thing is upside down ,the bottom needs the weight. The floor is too light ,too many colors. I think if you change that,you will have no trouble making a quick and sure choice for the cabinets.

[James Pallas]

I think I would stay away from red. Brown is ok. I like the ash idea but too much grain will clash with the floor. I would suggest you look at maple. Light color no grain conflict considerably raise that ceiling a bit with light color on top.
Jim

[Erik Christensen]

I like maple with a initial finish layer of BLO to pop the grain & add a yellow tint - that should lighten up the cold colors of the room

[Mel Fulks]

I disagree with "cold". I think it's the beige cielings ,not the nice big rooms, Who ever first said beige is "sophisticated" was the greatest marketing genius of all time.

[Steve Jenkins]

I made some Makore cabinets a while back and found it to VERY abrasive on the jointer . Jointing 2-1/2 x 60” stiles I had to move the fence every 3 pieces because it dulled the knives so quickly. Bought some carbide knives just for that job. Other than that, beautiful stuff.

[mike waters]

Jim and Jamie give reasons for their choice ,and I agree with them. The thing is upside down ,the bottom needs the weight. The floor is too light ,too many colors. I think if you change that,you will have no trouble making a quick and sure choice for the cabinets.


Well we we are not changing the floors. They are finished. Rubio monocoat natural oak.
just need to choose cabinets now.

[Yonak Hawkins]

What if I used quartersawn Ash

I don't see a lot of quartersawn ash. I think it's because there is not a lot of difference there .. just a tighter grain with no cathedral. Usually, with ash, it's the flat sawn that's most interesting. Also, I believe I would shy away from making the uppers and lowers of different woods.

Even with interesting grain in the floors, I tend to disagree with the idea to make the cabinets rather plain in contrast. The cabinets are where you want to dazzle.

[Adam Herman]

Have you chosen a wall color? I think you either go dark for wood, or paint them. I think maple and ash will not contrast enough. what is the plan for countertops? have you thought about cherry or hickory?

we have clear Hickory flooring, a bit warmer and more varied in color to your floor, and we painted our cabinets a warm medium tone gray. island is butcher block LL pine / maple and wraped in walnut around the edges, wall counters are concrete. everyone who sees it, loves it in person. you really have to pick all your finishes at once. we put together a whole pallet for the house starting with the floor and ending with the wall colors, but lots of testing and iterations.

and are the ceilings not flat white?

[Jim Becker]

With so many choices here, it's important to create a small "display" for design purposes that combines samples of all the materials (wood, paint, tile, counters) that you are considering so you can swap things in and out to find the right combination that all works together. That was the single best thing I did when we were in the design phases for our home addition a few years ago and it really made a difference in the end. In other words, this isn't just about the floor and cabinets, but all the other things that will be in the same spaces working together.

[Bill Dufour]

I think the dark wood look has peaked and will be old fashioned in a few years. I was in Hoe Depot the other day and 90% of the ceiling fans were dark even black. Only about 10% are white anymore.
Bill

[mike waters]

I think the dark wood look has peaked and will be old fashioned in a few years. I was in Hoe Depot the other day and 90% of the ceiling fans were dark even black. Only about 10% are white anymore.
Bill

good observation

Perhaps I could go with white islands and wood uppers..
I got so tired of these decisions, I coughed up $200 for an interior designer (pro from nashville) coming over tomorrow to just tell me what to do.. Reached my mental capacity with all of this haha.

[mike waters]

I don't see a lot of quartersawn ash. I think it's because there is not a lot of difference there .. just a tighter grain with no cathedral. Usually, with ash, it's the flat sawn that's most interesting. Also, I believe I would shy away from making the uppers and lowers of different woods.

Even with interesting grain in the floors, I tend to disagree with the idea to make the cabinets rather plain in contrast. The cabinets are where you want to dazzle.

i saw qaurter ash here
https://www.certainlywood.com/woodmenu.php


I could do what henry built does and have wood panels with painted faces - looks pretty cool actually.
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[Jamie Buxton]

With so many choices here, it's important to create a small "display" for design purposes that combines samples of all the materials (wood, paint, tile, counters) that you are considering so you can swap things in and out to find the right combination that all works together. That was the single best thing I did when we were in the design phases for our home addition a few years ago and it really made a difference in the end. In other words, this isn't just about the floor and cabinets, but all the other things that will be in the same spaces working together.

+1 on this. (The interior designers I've worked with call this a design palette.)

[Jim Becker]

Perhaps I could go with white islands and wood uppers...

This is a very worthy idea. The separation of the white lowers between the floor and the upper cabinets can help with this kind of situation. My own kitchen has white lowers with medium color tone uppers to help break things up and it's worked well. And that room has a very busy brick floor.

[andrew whicker]

I like colors (and like hanging art), but that's just me. I like to look at nature and see what colors she picked that I also like. I like most trees in bloom. Especially a tree with red blooms. So browns, greens and reds appeal to me. I think nature provides a nice pallette.

I also like simple square corners, simple flat faces, simple hardware and no fancy bevels, etc that we see on most cabinetry. I personally (don't beat me up too much on this) prefer the use of a mixture of materials. There really are a lot of very cool materials out there that are not wood. I recommend a book: The Surface Texture Bible. It's a book that covers many different ways to cover walls, floors, counter tops, etc. Very interesting book. I personally wouldn't get a hardwood floor and then also have cabinets that are clear coated or stained wood. Too much wood.

Architecture / interior design magazines are full of ideas too.

Cool house, btw. Have fun!

[Bill Graham]

I like the Makore for both the color and the straight grain. The color and grain, to my eye, contrast and complement the white oak flooring. I'd suggest using a water-based finish so the color doesn't change.

[sean meltvedt]

I too like makore. If I can, I’ll attach a picture or two of my makore kitchen with gunstock oak porcelain tile floors
it is a large kitchen, otherwise I could never had gotten away with dark cabs and flooring (use lots of lights)
as far as finish goes-first coat is an oil based “arm-r-seal followed by two coats of clear poly Just be sure to allow enough time for the oil to dry completely before applying the water based. If you skip the oil, then the beautiful figured grain gets dulled out-almost like it was covered with visqueen. This is the same flooring, pictures of the island back are with natural light, the base cab with 3000k led artificial light. Happy building
Sean
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[Keith Weber]

I think your floor is the problem. It's busy and drab - hard to work with. So, having said that the floor is staying, you're going to have to do the best you can. The top one (oak) in the first pic is out completely. It would make the whole kitchen wash out in a big sea of drab. Pic 2 competes too much with the grain pattern. The makore is probably the best of the choices, even though the tones don't overly go together. If you go with that one, definitely make sure that you have a sheen in the finish. You don't want it to be a dull finish, for fear of flooding the kitchen with dullness. If it were me, I might be inclined to go painted white (not whitewashed wood) to get the contrast you need, dark counter tops, and put some color in the walls. Good luck.

[mike waters]

Designer came over today and wow - she helped tremendously.
Her reccomendation (and I really love it) was what I was leaning toward originally, which was different colors for the two islands compared to the base cabinets against wall and uppers.
The uppers are going to be 36" tall, with a bi-fold door at 18", then the soffit will be 18" too.
Next to the windows, the bottom 18" will be a 2" end grain floating teak shelf that will have stainless steal (1/4" thick) stainless steel cables looking as if they are holding the shelves up, attached to the bottom of the uppers above it.. maybe i will find time to make a sketchup of it.
There will be 3 bonzai trees on each side of the sink on the shelves. Greens, Blues, Grays

Going to go with graphite oak for the islands (which will seperate and create a statement between the family room, dining room and rest of main floor)
then teak for the uppers and base cabinets against wall.. The two look really good together, they both pull colors from the floor.
Going to go with solid artic white countertops as well.
the bar top is going to be end-grain teak or solid white like the countertops - have not decided yet.

I will post photos of course when everything is in the works and through completion.
Currently I am putting together the carcasses

Need to chose some PVC edgebanding as well that matches- or close to matches, the teak and graphite.

[mike waters]

hereit looks really bad in sketchup (the colors)
but i wanted to show y'all the layout.
the colors look great together in person - i'll take a picture of them tomorrow.
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