What do you mean by different cab style? Do you mean matching doors and drawer faces but a different finish?

Our
kitchen cabs are all the same style (same door and drawer detail) but
we selected 2 different cab finishes and 2 different granites for our
kitchen. There were a few, including our cab designer, who doubted our
choices initially, telling us that we should either go with the same
granite or go with the same cabinet color but that we couldn't do both
differently. But we went ahead anyway and love how it came out! And we
won over the naysayers. Our cab designer just asked our permission to
post our kitchen on houzz. =)

I
think what makes it work is that our choices are fairly quiet overall
and they "speak" to one another. For instance, the island's cab color
echoes the colors of the hood, the backsplash and the wall color. The
island's granite (Bianco Romano) is the only element with movement but
even so, it's definitely not as busy as others out there and our
perimeter counter reads MOL as a solid color. Our backsplash is also not
an attention grabber. I don't think we could have pulled it off if we'd
added one or more busy element to the mix.

I think it also helps that our kitchen is a decent size. I don't think we would have made the same choices if it were smaller.

Share photos of your current kitchen and the granite you're considering for the island. You'll get more useful feedback, IMO.

In case it helps you make your decision, here's my finished kitchen thread, 50 Shades of Gray, TKO version

• lisa_a I love your kitchen! What I like about your island is that it looks like a totally separate piece of furniture. Not only the colors, but it looks like it's on legs. The picture below shows our current kitchen Extremely cramped. The wall to the left is staying, minus the soffit. The wall to the right gets turned around minus soffit and corner cabinets. The granite is Juparana, which has a lot of movement. That's why I went with a very quiet back splash.
  
  
  We're adding 12' to the back of the house. The next pic shows a very rough idea of what we're trying to accomplish.
• 

Thank you! We added a toe kick to the island all the way around and the cab maker recessed the cab base deeper than standard to make it seem even more like it was on legs, not a base.

Wow, cramped is right! Nice cabs.

"The wall to the left is staying, minus the soffit. The wall to the right gets turned around minus soffit and corner cabinets."

I don't quite understand what you're trying to do. Do you mean that the cabs and counter on the right wall will be moved to form a straight run on the top wall? If so, has anyone warned you that moving a granite counter comes with risk? It can be done successfully but it could also crack or get damaged in the process, making it unusable. Where will the counter be stored during demo and re-construction until it's time to place it? I'd be careful about designing around the existing granite until you know for sure it can be reused. And I'd have a back-up plan in place, just in case.

Your existing counter, which will be the predominant counter, has more movement than my predominant counter so it might be trickier to add more than one additional design element. It might be worth hiring a designer to assist you in choice selections (I did). We can offer advice and opinions but we would be making them based on photos and how things look on our computer screens and that's often not a good judge of how things look IRL.

Do you plan to reuse the 4" granite backplash below the tile? It adds busyness, IMO, so if you choose to add additional design elements, you may want to nix it and go with an all tile backsplash.

Ok I need to eat my words after seeing Lisa's kitchen again. I forgot she used two granites and two cabinet colors and made it work beautifully.

Thank you, cpartist!

Lovely kitchen, daisychain!

Stu, I thought it might help you to see some more kitchens with two different cab finishes and counters that I had saved to my inspiration file.

Historic Kitchen Renovation · More Info

History is in the details · More Info

Magnificant Historical Home Rumson NJ · More Info

This one has 3 different cab finishes and 2 different counters to create an unfitted kitchen.

Classic Mount Baker Tudor · More Info

Zutter · More Info

French Haven · More Info

Traditional Kitchen · More Info

This kitchen belongs to GWer Histokitch. Loved it since the first time I saw it.

Tudor kitchen · More Info

West HIlls - Kitchen · More Info

Atherton, California Luxury Home by Markay Johnson Construction · More Info

Oops, hit the photo limit. More to come in next post.

Ireland in CT · More Info

All of the above kitchens work, IMO, because the predominant elements are quiet and the finishing touches compliment them. The few touches that draw attention are accents so their impact doesn't overwhelm the whole ensemble.

Juparana granite has quite a bit of movement so I think it will be trickier to pull off the 2 cabinet finishes/2 counter choices combo well. It would be easier to do if it were your island counter, not your main counter.

Here's an example.

Elegant Traditional Kitchen · More Info

What might work is an island with a painted finish, perhaps a creamy white/ivory that compliments the granite, and a wood counter that echos your perimeter cabinets and a softly colored tile for the backsplash, very similar to the first photo I posted at the top of this post. Let the Juparana granite be the star.