The subject line says it all but if you want more to read, the whole long story is below, along with my dilemma.

Should I use dark floor tiles with a dark counter? Or light? Or should I use light tiles with a light counter? The cabinets are maple and I like them the way they are.

TLDR follows:

This all started because my daughter wrote me a list of things to update in the kitchen and left it at my spot at the table. Of course all the things on the list started bugging me once she had pointed it out.

-- Paint kitchen white (DONE - Benjamin Moore Simple White)

-- Change handles on cabinets (DONE - and I LOVE the new handles - black bars replaced old style brass and porcelain)

-- add backsplash in small green tiles (IN PROGRESS, sort of, I bought white tiles for the backsplash that have a mix of glass that has some green to it. I like it a lot and am looking forward to having it installed after the new countertops are in.

-- change counter - this is where it got tricky. We looked at countertop material and decided on granite for a variety of reasons and several FB polls among our friends. We measured for Corian and decided against quartz because of the manufacturing process. We were going for dark (Ubatuba or similar) but several people said it was so hard to keep looking nice because of the shine. We started looking at light granites but then we discovered leathered granite and we love the look and feel and all of the local suppliers either have it or can do it so we're back to Ubatuba, Peacock Green, or Verde Butterfly - I love shades of green.

Our kitchen has an irregular island. It's an "open" L with an angle of 107 degrees, not the usual 90. It was created by placing the cabinet that has the sink and the cabinet that has the cooktop so that they formed the 107 degree angle and then their backs were extended to meet at the outside corner. This means that there was wasted space there so I asked my clever husband if he could build a corner shelf there for me. He agreed to do that before we replaced the countertops. It's still a work in progress but you get the idea.

When he took the backs off the cabinets to start the work, he realized that there would need to be extra tiles laid in to cover the bare floor revealed under the new shelf. BUT we already had several broken tiles so he would replace them at the same time.

Once we started trying to remove the broken tiles to replace them it became apparent that likely none of the tiles floor are stuck to the floor as they all lift up cleanly once the grout is broken. So now we have to replace the floor as well.

We considered hardwood but the kitchen has 4 doors (1 to outside, 1 to the dining room where there is light oak hardwood, 1 to the hall which has light oak with a dark oak border on the edge (and at the doorway) and 1 to our bedroom (very convenient). We considered that new plastic laminate since we've used it in our bathroom at the cottage and love it but the difference in thickness wouldn't work and it has the same issue as the hardwood for matching, etc.

So now we are back to looking at ceramic/porcelain tile for durability and appearance.

I'm not changing my maple cabinets, not even painting them. They match our door and window trim (all solid wood, not finger-joint paint-grade) and also match our wood wainscoting on the wall beneath the windows that are on the east side of the kitchen. The doors are raised panel but thankfully (due to my minimalist preferences) they are a square raised panel, not the kind that have an arch on the top of the panel so they aren't as dated as they could be.In using several online tools (Corian site is good for this), I've concluded that dark counters really look best with my cabinets but until recently, I have been looking at light-coloured floor tiles, nearly white. Then I tried using dark floor tiles with a dark counter on one of the sites and boy did it look great.

I'm interested in hearing opinions about matching or not matching countertop and floor colours (I know you can't match exactly but dark and dark or not?).

Also, any experience anyone has that would help advise me before I actually am committed (financially or mentally) would be appreciated.

Also, thanks to my daughter for kick-starting this process. We haven't disowned her yet.

Janet

Elmira, Ontario, CANADA