The Best Cabinets that Go with Hickory Floors

Complimentary

• For a warm, rustic feeling, couple your hickory wood floors with natural-finish wooden cabinets. The Nar Fine Carpentry company recommends complementing your floors with wooden cabinets that are about three shades lighter or darker than the floor to keep the floor and cabinets from blending into one another and creating “material confusion.” Because hickory has a strong, prominent grain, accent it with wooden cabinets that have smooth, clean grains, such as what's found with cherry or cedar.

Contrasting

• If you'd rather make a bold statement, cabinets that contrast with your hickory floor are the best choice. Contrasting your floor and cabinets especially suits modern and contemporary décor styles. Laura Dalzell, owner of Cabinets & Designs Inc. of Lexington, says “Consumers think everything has to match, but the pros mix.” For a particularly bold space, paint the cabinets various shades. For instance, contrast medium-brown hickory floors with apple-green or cool-hued perimeter cabinets and black-glazed work-island cabinets.

Examples

• Go with darker cabinets if you have light white or blonde hickory floors. Use light, mellow colors such as baby blue or warm yellow to open up your kitchen or bright hues such as red to embolden the space. Increase the contrast by choosing light cabinets to go with dark hickory floors, such as those with a walnut-hued or red-brown stain. Cool, subdued hues such as blue-gray and natural, brownish green complement dark hickory floors.

Accents

• Kitchen design doesn't end with cabinets and floors. Once you've chosen the right cabinetry for your hickory floors, focus on any wooden molding in the kitchen. Match the moldings to the cabinets either with paint or stain. If the next room from your kitchen features a different type of wood flooring than hickory, create a smooth transition between the spaces by incorporating a bit of the other wood texture in the kitchen entryway, such as in the bordering door frame.