Can I Mix Woods in My Kitchen Cabinets and Floors?

Your home is your castle, so in the event that you would like tigerwood flooring and cabinets made of birds-eye maple in the kitchen, then the one thing stopping you is your budget. Even if you’re a hardwood aficionado, however, a lot of shade — or even inconsistent colours or timber grains — can make the space look awkward. On the flip side, a tasteful mixture of hardwoods that harmonizes with the rest of the decor can certainly form up your kitchen.

Managing Visual Information

The materials you use to your floor and cabinets need to procrastinate, not just with each other, but with the walls and appliances. Hardwoods tend toward warm colours, and a tendency of the rest of the decor toward warmth gives you more latitude when blending them. If you are using the hardwood for a counterpoint in a kitchen with cool walls, lots of chrome or enameled appliances, then the combination of two distinct hardwoods may provide more visual information than the eye could comfortably handle. It is possible, however, to make a virtue from info overload and efficiently combine a number of hardwoods in the kitchen and throughout the house, as California designer Debbie Nassetta recommends.

Watch That Grain

Each hardwood species has a different grain pattern, and some are far more exaggerated than many others. Two hardwoods with notable grains, like hickory and pine, can readily clash when you used them in the exact same space. A few other hardwoods, like mahogany and clear walnut, are popular partly because they don’t have marked grains — those are usually safe to mix with different woods, provided the colours harmonize. Oak has a fairly notable grain and isn’t the easiest material to combine with other individuals. The hardwoods that function best with it are the ones that don’t compete for attention. Rather than tigerwood, for example, combine oak with yellow cherry or birch.

Visual Perspective

The floor and cabinets provide the majority of the shade in the kitchen, and they combine with the walls and ceiling to create a space which can be relaxing, sumptuous or conducive to function. Whatever your predilections for kitchen layout, keeping colors close to the floor darker than those higher up could be grounding, based on layout consultant Laurie March. If you are more into visual comparison, however, you might prefer to follow Nassetta’s information and make the flooring shade lighter than the cabinets. One advantage of this strategy is that light wood flooring are easier to keep clean than dark ones.

Layout Tips

Regardless of that hardwoods you pair in your kitchen, they will highlight each other, and it is a fantastic idea to store additional visual information into a minimum. If the kitchen includes unpainted wood trim, it should be the exact same material as the cabinets — not a third material. Rather than making a statement with flowery window coverings, then use a monochromatic or subtle pattern that is happy to remain in the background. The wall and ceiling colours may also fade in the background, or they could be daring, but they need to be uncomplicated. Utilizing the exact same colour for both is better than your two-tone strategy.

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