I received this question concerning changing the color on existing kitchen cabinets and I thought I would share it with everyone. I get a lot of questions regarding cabinet colors, wood flooring selections and how they should “work together.” The question was:

I have new medium cherry cabinets in a new home that we have just purchased.  I would like them to be much darker.  Is it possible to do this without refinishing the cabinets?  What wood for flooring would you suggest to complement/contrast the darker cherry cabinets?

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I’m very pleased to hear that my book, Designing Your Perfect House, is proving to be valuable to people who are building or remodeling. When I wrote it, I really hoped it would become an important resource for people and help them feel more “in control” of the building process. So it heartens me to receive questions like this one concerning the wood floors shown in the book photos.

We are starting to select the different materials around the house.  Your beautiful pictures have been a great inspiration…  I particularly like your wooden floors on pages 114

Page 114 Photo from "Designing Your Perfect House"

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It’s nearly winter. That means that your hardwood floors are about to show cracks between the boards. If you’ve moved into a new house, these cracks could cause alarm. How could your brand new hardwood floors crack?

Gaps between boards, or cracks, if you will, are not the result of the wood floor failing or falling apart. They are the result of the wood planks shrinking as the relative humidity goes down and the wood floor loses moisture content. The air in the summer has a higher relative humidity than in the summer. This lets the wood flooring absorb moisture and swell. So usually gaps between boards go away in the summer. Then those gaps reappear in the winter as the humidity goes down again. (more…)

    When you mention wood floors to most people, they conjure up an image of a narrow board, red oak floor. But times have changed. Now there are many, many choices of board width and species. And many of these choices come at a modest cost increase. I’ve used white oak, antique chestnut oak, antique heart pine, santos mahogany, jatoba (aka Brazilian cherry), Australian cypress, cumaru, lyptus, and other species you may not have ever heard of. The range of color choices and grain patterns is impressive. (more…)

    If you have wood floors in your kitchen and a natural wood finish on your kitchen cabinets, should the floors and cabinets be the same species of wood and the same color or should they contrast? And if they should contrast, which should be the darker color?

    I often discuss this issue with my clients. My feeling is that there needs to be some color distinction between the flooring and the cabinetry so that the cabinets don’t look like the floor is simply wrapping itself up the walls. After all, one is the floor and the other is essentially furniture and they should express themselves differently. I would suggest that there is no rule about which wood is the lighter or the darker. (more…)