Can I Use Maple Floors With Oak Cabinets?

Light Tones

• A light and airy feel in the kitchen can be achieved with an unstained or light-tint stained maple floor finished with a high-gloss sealant. The lightest shade attainable for the oak cabinets, while providing enough contrast through its distinctly different appearance, lightens up the kitchen with tones that reflect light back into the rest of the space. For an open, minimalist, modern feeling, this is an option to choose.

Dark Tones

• A mix of warm, dark tones can make a room feel cozy and inviting. Staining the maple floor a very dark tint, combined with dark-stained oak cabinets, adds depth and drama to the room, and an elegant backdrop to light-colored countertops, backsplashes and accents. The differences in the wood types will still be noticeable, but will fade somewhat into the background of the warm, rich wood tones.

Light Oak and Dark Maple

• A dark-stained maple floor creates a dramatic backdrop that draws the attention to the light-stained oak cabinets. Causing the flooring to fade into the background, the cabinetry becomes the highlighted feature of the room. It is a matter of preference which look to choose for the tones of the maple against the oak, but a dark floor against light oak cabinets leaves room in the design for dark wooden accents that play off the floor's wood tone.

Light Maple and Dark Oak

• A light maple floor against a dark oak wall of cabinets creates the most drama in the differences of the wood. The different wood stain tones clearly set apart the cabinetry from the floor, and the drastic difference affords a lot of room for other shades of wood in between.

  Introduce wooden accessories, ranging from blond wood pieces to dark mahogany. The theme of the kitchen shifts from an array of wood types and tones to a space for colorful highlights. The browns of the wood still function as neutral earth tones, and warmly accent bold splashes of color, such as red, blue, green, yellow, orange or purple, repeated throughout the room on cookware and kitchen accessories.