All natural maple ends up a honey color over time. It as the nature o the wood to change over time. Maple stained honey will end up darker as well. The end result in a coupe of years time would be that the natural very new blonde maple will be just about the color of your honey maple sample that is new right now. And the honey maple sample will be a shade and a half darker than it's current color, which most people would still think of as a light wood color.

Sorta like this KM Toffee color.

Good point. I actually like yellows and ambers....so maybe all the people who are complaining about the yellowing just don't like yellow?

We have a cabin in NE PA that was built in the 50's with knotty pine panelling so I know what pine looks like after many years of oxidation and UV exposure. I have cherry cabs there and I know they too will darken over time. I chose maple for this house because it is such a light colored wood and I love the all the different grains especially the birds eye maples.

It took me a few weeks to decide between natural maple with brown stain, and the honey-colored ones. I went with the former and one decision I don't regret. (The brown stain makes the beading stand out, as my cabs are shakers with the extra ridge around edge.)

I kept moving the 2 cabinets around the room, checking them in different lights.

It is still dark here, but I'll try to add picture. The picture shows the trim, but cabinets NOT yellow at all, just the lights on.

Love them! It's good to know I'm not the only one who agonizes over these decisions! Thanks for sharing.

We chose a light maple finish for our remodel. It seems like the trend is white or a dark cherry which are beautiful but didn't seem right for our kitchen. Our old cabinets were a dark stained oak, with light counters and we wanted to change it up. Now, we've got the light cabinets with a dark counter top and I love it. The light finish just brightens up the whole room. I love white kitchens because they are just so bright, cheery and clean looking. But all our wood trim and interior doors are stained medium brown and white just didn't seem to belong with that. (Love white trim and doors too, but don't have the energy right now to paint it all!) The dark cherry is lovely too but my old cabinets were dark and I needed a change. The light color of the new cabinets lighten up the room, but keeps the warm feel to it that I wanted. We originally wanted the natural finish, but chose a light stain shade, hoping they wouldn't yellow so much if they had a stain instead of just the clear coat. We installed under cabinet lights to offset the dark counters too.