The first thing I would check is if you have a basement under your kitchen or not. If not, you probably have your kitchen sitting on a concrete slab which will limit your choices to engineered or glue down wood flooring. If you do have a basement you can do 3-1/4" wide hardwood planks. You can go wider but I do not recommend that for kitchens. Remember, hardwood is a live material. I would definitively go darker as you already have oak cabinets and light (maple color) laminate counter tops. Do not try to match the cabinets it is really hard unless you have a great installer. It can end up looking like you tried very hard and were not successful. Have your floor vendor put down several stain options such as antique oak or walnut stain from MinWax.
Last but no least, I do not know what kind of flooring you currently have down, so I cannot gage the thickness. You need to make sure that whatever option you choose, you will be able to take out your dishwasher for servicing. I have this mistake time and time again, where the hardwood is knocked up to the edge of the DW and it cannot be taken out.

Good luck!

Thank you for your response regarding my kitchen floor. I have been looking at Tuscan brown oak by Mullican through Lowes. It is darker than the cabinet.
I plan to replace the counter top with quartz. Allen & Roth (tacana C)See the attached photo. Do you think it will look ok with my oak cabinets?

Absolutely! I like both choices. Enjoy the new look.

Lighter floor. I like cork. :)

I matched wood floor to my current cabinets and it was extremely easy. I had installed an unstained a pine floor. I got sample colors of rubiomono coat, which is a great no voc floor stain. I played around with mixing the samples and was able to get a color that is so darn close to the cabinets it is amazing. You would never know that the cabinets were cheap crap from China from the previous owners and the flooring is reclaimed pine.

I think the counters you picked out will look nice with the cabinets but I think your kitchen might look rather dark with dark counters, dark cabinets and dark floors. Then again, perhaps I am just being brain washed by all the white kitchens I am seeing on Houzz these days!

Like the floor choice....think the countertop is a bit dark....I'd opt for lighter Quartz .

I do plan to add can ceiling lights and also under cabinet lighting. We also have 3 large windows facing east and a window above the sink. The walls will also be light. I believe this will add contrast. What do you think?

do not try to match the wood. it looks terrible. you want contrast either lighter or darker. your granite choice looks good.

http://houzz.com/photos/10673425


Here's one example of similar toned floors and cabinets with lighter countertop. I think it's lovely!

Too woody for me. I prefer some contrast. looks more natural and not like you bought a giant vat of stain and used it everywhere until you ran out of it. But is a taste issue.

Ok, I changed my mind! After looking around on houzz, I vote for floors that match the cabinets.

Another question. I am changing hardware to black just a tough of copper @ the edge of pulls. I believe changing the hinges to black would be to much black. What do you think??

Can you show us a pic of the black pull with copper? That sounds nice and was part of my debate in answering your original question.

I don't have a photo, butt will get one tomorrow and post it.

Oooh, I think the black touches sound perfect.

Your door hardware should match the hinges. Oil rubbed bronze would look better than the black, IMO.

Dark floors show every footprint and crumb. Unless you don't mind "lived in" be very wary of dark wood floors.

pewicks
12:57 AM
Regarding your comment yesterday asking for a photo of the cabinet pulls. See photo. I also enclosed a larger photo of the flooring. Do u think they are to dark?

I really like the darker pulls, though I was thinking something a little chunkier. These two below are from Lowe's. I'd go with something more like that.

The floor looks awesome to me! It's kind of hard to tell what it will look like up against your actual cabinetry though. Can you get a sample?