I love it too. I find it will look good for many years as opposed to the whitish oak that is a trend and that more chances of looking dated in a couple of years.

Looks gorgeous!

It’s so orange! Lol. I think it just reminds me of my grandmas stained maple cabinets. I’ve tried so hard to love these but I just don’t 🤦🏼‍♀️ lol

Strip and bleach, then whitewash, and a waterborne clear coat, like Renner. You may damage your counters or floors with the bleach if you aren’t careful.

Totally get where you are coming from, but I fear more work on it won’t make it better. It’s still beautiful and natural. The lines, countertop, and I’m sure hardware you have chosen, will make it look far from Grandma’s! Give yourself time to adjust. After I did my kitchen I thought I was going to be sick w all the little things that weren’t exact. Once it was painted, stools in, etc, it all just blended together and I’m happy with it now.

The problem actually starts with the wood species. You'll find the color you want by looking at flooring. European white oak is the species used. Water based two part clear finish is used as part of the finishing process. I would not have chosen those cabs to start with. It's only money. I doubt you'll get a good finished product now. Sanding and bleaching may remove the yellow. The bleaching will also remove the subtle color variations of the natural wood. And much of the beauty. I don't think you can get what you want now. There are times when you've made a mistake and have to accept the cost. Start again this time with more knowledge and experience. Move forward to your goal.

Naples - European Oak Engineered Hardwood Floors (urbanfloor.com)

You still have a lot of work ahead even if you begin again. Very challenging. You'll reap the rewards for years.

Even if I need to do a different finish than this white wash look, that’s fine, I just don’t want orange cabinets. I absolutely hate this color and with the hardware and appliances I think it’ll look even worse.
Thank you all so much for your help.

Your inspiration picture is a high end expensive look. It starts with the wood selection, and the choice of high end custom cabinet maker, with decades of in house artisanal finishing and use of the new matte European finishing products. Your inspiration uses expensive white oak rift sawn wood, for a uniform grain appearance. The lower quality plain sawn red oak wood choice for the veneer panels and frames will not go away with a different finish. It is the foundation of the look for everything else that happens to that base.

You cannot get your inspiration picture with those cabinets as the base. You just can’t. Hate is a strong word, and the waste to discard 20K worth of cabinets and spend 60K on new ones would be considerable. But if you hate those that strongly, then remove the cabinets and have new rift sawn white oaks cabinets made for you by a higher level custom cabinet maker. If you don’t have someone locally with that high skill level needed to produce your inspiration, then look at Omega custom cabinets.

if you can't live with them and want to try to have them refinished, I think you need to give up on them being super light. with color mixing, adding white does not make it a lighter version of that color, it tones it to pastel. and it has to be semi-opaque which gives it a washed look (as you already learned).

a medium matte brown could be really pretty in here. you have plenty of natural light + white countertops that your kitchen will still be bright. I know these pics below is a different cabinet style, but look how pretty the color looks in a sunny room. (imagine how much brighter the first pic would be if they had white counters like yours):

IF you try to have these cabinets fixed, find a professional woodworker. have them stripped and test clear stains until you find one that tones down the orange well enough. for testing, get the scrap wood from those cabinets, or do swatches on the backs of doors (you can sand them down again). once you narrow down a color, have one entire door done as a large swatch. put it in the kitchen and mull it over for several days. light changes all through the day and can impact color greatly.

Those are really beautiful.

The before picture was already red-toned.

What will your floors be?

These are my floors

you're trying to do white oak cabinets with white oak floors? that sounds like too much of one color.

here's a mockup with your current floor and current cabinets. note: it's basically impossible to get a color accurate mockup with cell phone pics taken in different areas of the home. can you show us a pic with a bunch of flooring planks lined up at the base of your new cabinets? like, fill at least half the kitchen with loose planks, step back, and see how it looks.

is it possible to do tile for the kitchen? (the proportions are off here, but just picture the color). this contrast looks really beautiful to me:

and here's how it might look if you went with a darker cabinet color:

the wood floor doesn't look great in this mockup but don't panic -- it might be because it's not the most accurate pic.

Unfortunately I see more pink in your floor than your cabinets. All of which leads to the fact that computer monitors are not the place to judge pictures taken with a cell phone.

right? I almost didn't post the mockups for that reason. I decided to do it anyway but it's really a stretch of the imagination.

Shouse: show us a pic with a generous amount of planks placed at the base of the cabinets and we can try to advise further. even though it's going to be a cell phone pic, at least the two woods will be captured in the same light.

And I hate to keep saying it but the elephant on the room going forward is the fact that multiple finishes were already applied to your wood. You may never get a nice light finish now, or at least an even one.

This is the current cabinet with floor.... does it look bad? No. But it is not the color I wanted AT ALL... I don’t want orange or red.... I want a more gray/white/tan undertone.

I just wanted the kitchen to be light wood and black like the outside of the house.

What would maybe a transparent paint look like? Maybe something where you can still see the wood grain but it’ll change the color?

I’m not sure how to fix it I just can’t live with these. I really hate the color and it’s not even either.... some places are super orange and some look like there’s nothing on them 🤦🏼‍♀️

And I know that’s just the nature of the wood to go darker in some areas, I’m just not in love with the dark orange.

"I really hate the color and it’s not even either."

Again, this very well may get worse due to the fact that the wood has had multiple finishes applied. You need to call in a professional wood finisher, not a painter, a wood furniture finisher guy to determine what can be done. Throwing more finishes at it without a solid base of knowledge about what will work is akin to peeing into a strong wind and wondering why your pants and shoes are wet.

Just going to keep them as is.... learned a lot from all this. Thank you all for the help.

Honestly you need to just finish it and move in all of your furniture and decor. Then post back with pics. I think you may be very happy with the end result if all ties in - for instance - do you have furniture in this space that ties in with this wood color? If yes then I think you will in fact be happy in the end. A lot of people at your stage of a renovation get focused on one thing and tend to loose sight of the big picture.

It’s just hard when I had a design in mind and this color is completely Opposite of what I wanted.
I think my biggest hang up is it not matching the outside wood.... not sure why that bothers me so much but it does. Just trying to rethink my design.... not sure what I want now. 😓

I also think that objectively it looks good. I realize it’s not what you pictured and that stinks. It’s also the newest thing in the room which always makes it seem bigger than it is. Counters, back splash, appliances will all add to this (pretty) kitchen.

Will you have an island and if so what are the finishes?

Hi @Shouse, I know how hard it is to change your vision midstream, but if you truly dislike the finish with your wood floors, have you considered painting/staining the cabinets black? It would be very striking with your countertops and would offer a beautiful contrast with your white oak flooring. The added bonus is that it would also tie in to your exterior color palette.

@thinkdesignlive I will not have an island, just a big kitchen table.

@TwoBelles I have considered staining black.... I don’t want to paint them bc I would’ve just spent way less money on paint grade cabinets instead of upgrading the wood for the stain look I wanted. I think the black would be as close to making me happy as I could get but it scares me! Lol

haven't read through every comment, but are these white oak or red oak? if the latter, you're going to get the pink.

what if they were stripped of the current finish, and you had them cerused? (also called Limed) not gonna lie, it's not a cheap option as the labor involved is heavy. I've done it to a few oak projects. it's basically rubbing white into the grain only. not a white wash. only the grain gets it. The original process uses liming wax.

but it can be done with other options. (I've used both the wax and the white stain.)

he could use an ashy gray stain (or actually w/a ceruse they use a aniline dye) first, and then the white in the grain.

I"ve also head of a Bona Natural finish instead of normal cabinet lacquers.

They are white oak.... at least that’s what I was sold and what reads on my invoice. Here is a picture of the raw wood.... I cannot tell the difference between white or red 😓

yes. looks like white. it would look beautiful cerused. no stain required. just a 50/50 alcohol/shellac, then the liming, then the finish. (but no varnish can go on top of wax. so if you want a clear coat, they'll have to ceruse it w/a white stain or something similar. )

Please do not stain or paint those cabinets black. Why are you so fixated on the kitchen looking like the outside of the house?

When you open my front door the house is a very open floor plan.... you walk right into kitchen/living and I feel it just needs to flow.... if the kitchen was a bit closed off with even an island I feel it could work but with it being completely open I feel it just needs to match or flow.

And also I just didn’t want orange/red tones 🤷🏼‍♀️

Beth H.
I experimented today on some spare pieces and I used an ash gray and it’s pretty close to what I want.
Going to go over these with the contractor and see if we can get them all the same as my samples 🤞🏻

Hi, I am wondering how your cabinets turned out? I have the same issue with white oak rift sawn cabinets in my bathroom. We had them custom made and the pictures we provided had the same greige matte tone you wanted. We ended up with the yellow orange color too. Stressing out and trying to find a solution as well. Let me know if you have had any luck.

None of this is fixable on the hind end. You have to pick the cabinet maker who knows how to do this, on the front end. None of it involves any waxing of anything either. That isn’t compatible with any cabinet finish.

@krishnablue42 we ended up doing then an entirely different color. We weren’t able to achieve what I wanted and I didn’t want to continue to keep trying when I knew the only fix was brand new cabs 🤦🏼‍♀️ I am happy with our color choice though! I feel I’m happier with the darker than I would’ve been with the light.

@Shouse, it turned out beautiful! I’m so glad your angst and agony are over and you have a timeless and beautiful result! Well done!

Those look great Shouse! Nice job.

Beautiful!

What stain did you decide on using?

Can you please tell me what stain you ended up going with? Your finished product is exactly what I'm looking for!

Would also love to know how you ended up fixing- my builder did the same thing and im heartbroken.

Those are beautifying cabinets. What stain did you use?

I’m looking for the same fix. What type of stain was used? I just had my laundry room cabinets built with white oak and it looks yellow/red tones. It’s nothing what I had envisioned! Any help is appreciated!

The first picture is how it turned out. The other pics were what I gave our builder for color/style reference.