@kendrah- my wife’s cook a lot, I head quartz backsplash is not good heat tolerant. This is the reason I am going with tile. I may look in to more white tile and countertop.

@jennifer Hogan. Thank you for posting examples. I appreciate that. I posted some of my current kitchen pics with floor.
I will probably pick first faucet. (I am going to look on my computer screen one more time )
I think you are right white undertone will pop up sand color.
I posted current pics of my kitchen. I am thinking to keep same floor.

The countertops you are showing as well as the backsplash, do not go with sand cabinets. There is too much gray in them. The sand color makes things a bit more difficult. Does the sand color go with your existing flooring, since you intend to keep it. Also, since you do want to keep the existing flooring, the countertops and backsplashes, you are looking at are all too busy to go with the flooring. When you choose backsplash and counter, remember the cabinet color, and the flooring, so that what you pick looks good with both. I think, gold or brass may not be just right with sand cabinets and with your floors either.

I had a ton of taupe kitchens on my Pinterest board before our reno. Love the look of counter and backsplash in the same material if you can do it. Calacutta Gold marble (not the quartz you show above), Vancouver quartzite, Taj Mahal quartzite, or Carrara marble, mixing gray with the taupe. I think the dark counters are pretty too. To get the gold accents, I'd suggest unlacquered brass hardware and/or brass lights. The backsplash you show above is quite busy, and it's easier to swap out hardware down the road if you want a change.

Make sure your lighting is updated first. Choosing the exact right cabinet color to work with your tile floor is the first step. THEN you pick a countertop.

After everything is installed you choose a backsplash. No gold. Plain tiles are probably your second best idea after repeating the countertop as your backsplash. Your floor makes a huge statement. (Every floor does.)

I see many things that could be better: )

It appears the island should not be there at all and certainly not with seating on the fridge side

Are you taking cabinets to ceiling/eliminating the high low

Where do you eat? Dining room?

Is there tile beneath the island?

Do you have a cabinet plan? Can you show it?

All of this comes before any and all you are posting about. .........

Begin at the begin, despite it is tempting to skip the beginning

@Jan Mayor. This is what is the new design. Yes the cabinet will go up to the ceiling. I am planning to put lights in glass cabinets

I happen to like black counters on taupe cabinets. Would look great with gold faucets and hardware, but black faucets and hardware would be great, too.

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Silver Spring second story addition and kitchen · More Info

Note the off white subway tile for the backsplash.

@Sabrina Alfin. I like the backsplash. Do you have link or where to buy. I will look in to black countertop. I was just looking bright ones. Thank you.

@stiley
Thank you for sharing ideas.i will probably look into other stones such as quartzite and marble.

Lighting does make a difference, but I have found that when two colors work together. Lighting won't fix two colors that clash and won't make two colors that work well together suddenly clash - the lighting changes every color it hits.

Where lighting can cause issues is when you have natural daylight hitting some areas and artificial hitting other areas or when you mix the color of your lighting - have 3000k ceiling lights and 5000k under counter lights.

So decision 1 is lighting.

I do like to see more yellow lighting in some older homes with antique furnishings where you can imagine that they had gas lamps or candles at some point. (2700-3000k / Edison bulbs . . . ) I have also seen it in some newer homes that are replicas of the older styles. It works well with wood tones and fall colors (orange/ orange reds/greens).

4000k is a fairly neutral light, does not throw a lot of yellow, but it does throw some yellow. It is often recommended on this board and I do like 4000 k for many homes. It works well with most colors.

6000k is too stark and bright and will appear blue in most homes although it is the color of natural daylight at at noon

5000k is the lighting I use in my home. I have a lot of purples and wine reds and don't want any of the yellow tones making them muddy. Some people find 5000k too white.

There is no right or wrong answer - pick up a few light bulbs and figure out what feels good to you and makes your colors look the way you want them to look.

I just pulled an area rug from the the internet to show how the colors change as I change lighting temperature.

@Jennifer Hogan. Thank you for detailed explanation on lighting. I will definitely try different lighting and will decide. Based on your suggestion and others input I will probably go with brushed brass instead of gold.
I am unable to decide on counter top. Shall I go dark vs white countertop

No I don't have a link, but take the photo to any reputable tile dealer and they will probably have mulitple similar options.

Ok sure I will do that. I will also check out black countertop. Thank you

I'd use the sand/taupe color cabinets with either a plain white stone (quartz/marble) or a dark (absolute black or jet mist granite) counter top. Then use antique brass for hardware--gold is indeed too glitzy for your cabinets. Backsplash, as has been said, comes last, after cabinets and counter tops are in.

If you're keeping your tile floors, you need to make sure that both the cabinet color and the counter top color work with the tile.

This sounds good to me. I will go to store and check both white and black countertops. I am also thinking about brass hardware and faucet instead of gold. Thank you

Following

You are heading in the right direction, will counter, hardware, tile, but those come last. The very first thing that I am still not sure about is how that cabinet color works with your floor.

Your flooring is throughout other areas on your first floor and it sounds like you will be keeping it, correct? Stand your cabinet sample up on the floor, against where your cabinets are now so you can see how it looks with the floor. Do this in different locations around the room, look at it at different times of day, and with different lights on.

You can come up with a great cabinet, counter, backslpash, hardware combo but it the cabinets don't look good with the floor, none of it matters.

Note that all of your drawings have a nice wood floor in them. See if whomever made the drawings can do them with your actual floor in them and see if you are still wow'ed by them.

This is with my floor. In my living room there is hardwood floor same as stairs. Let’s say if I have to change the floor what do you think which color I should go. It’s a big expense.

I love your hardwood flooring and the cabinets look great next to them, but looking at your flooring in the kitchen, that also seems to work well with the cabinets. I don't think you need to change the flooring. I am not a huge fan of hardwood in kitchens - too easy to damage.

There is something you can do that will improve the look of the tile in the kitchen area. Recolor the grout.

Grout that was not sealed consistently gets dark.

I recolored the grout for about 1500 SF of tile in my last home. It isn't difficult, just time consuming. DIY Project.

This is from the internet, but is representative of the results I had.

Internet photos are always a bit of a stab in the dark. Every phone adjusts the color, every platform adjusts the color, every computer and every monitor change the way color is displayed.

Ever play that game where one person whispers something to the person sitting next to them and after 10 or 15 people the message is completely scrambled. Yep - that is color data over the internet.

I have looked at hundreds of photos and can usually guess with a fair amount of accuracy what is going on. The best judge is the person standing in the room looking at the cabinets with the flooring.

Do you like the cabinet with your tile? Do you like your cabinets with your current wall color? Do you like the current wall color with the tile in the kitchen and the hard wood in the other rooms?

It looks like they are all variations of taupe (Mix of Gray and Beige with a violet or pink undertone). These colors don't play well with yellow beige or green beige or greige. They work best with other variants of Taupe and violet gray. They also look good with blue greens.

They can also work well with whites that have just the slightest touch of cream. Watch that whites don't go yellow or green or blue.

I am also not in the Must Have Real Stone camp. To me a quality quartz is fine.

Marble is beautiful, but I know it would end up etched and stained in my home.

There is too much chance with the Quartzites - are they marble, are they quartz - most of what I have heard or seen here on Houzz is they can also etch and stain.

Quartz won't etch or stain. Granite generally will not etch or stain as long as what you are buying is actually Granite and not mislabeled.

Granite has to be sealed once a year.

Granite is very heat resistant (It can crack if you set a hot pan on it, but it won't burn and usually doesn't crack.)

Quartz will burn if a hot pan sits on the surface.

Some quartz is better than others.

My sister has Cambria Quartz and I am getting Cambria Quartz. Good reputation.

I got MSI quartz in my bathrooms. Good enough for a bathroom, but not as durable as Cambria.

Granite and Quartz both have positives and negatives.

Read about all your countertop options and make the decision that will work best for you and your family and fits into your budget.

Pick your countertop before you pick your backsplash.

@ Jennifer Hogan.
These are some pictures to show the different floor I have in my living room. The third pictures I sent above was from the store where I saw sand cabinets. Yes I will choose countertop first.

You are replacing cabinet for cabinet, island for island

If you would draw and measure the entire space and include what is probably a sliding door we can't see? Yes...it's work : ) But you won't know what could be better, any other way. Feet and inches, every last one of them. Every wall....opening and window : )

Uploaded as very legible jpeg.

For what it's worth, I would run the wood floor into the kitchen in a heartbeat. It's SO much nicer than the tile.

Ok should I match the color of the living room floor. I don’t know if I get the same thing.

You make sure the cabinets that sit on any floor, tile or hardwood is the layout you really want.

Can't do that without a measure. A cabinet salesman will virtually always take the easiest route - which is why few are actually kitchen designers,. They are usually salesman. I think you have a salesman: )

My island is not on tile. I am extending my island 6 inch and the tile will be removed that’s what my installer told me. I am looking in to the best way to improve kitchen without changing floor. But was wondering what the other people think about floor.

I think your floor is fine. It appears to need a good professional type cleaning, and the grout resealed after thats done.. Tile is a good surface for a kitchen floor.

Ahh.. thank you for your suggestion. I am thinking of professional cleaning of the tiles.

I loved having tile floors in my last home - so easy to care for with lots of people and animals in the home. Hardwood is beautiful, but not the most practical for people like me who will always have multiple large dogs.

Many of the people I know that have/had hardwood covered the majority of it with area rugs because they didn't want the hardwood floors ruined.

The only thing I see wrong with your tile is that the grout has darkened. Not much will stick to the tiles themselves and once the grout is stained they can clean it for a month of Sundays and it will still be stained. The solution is to recolor the grout. You clean the floors and grout, paint on the colorant, wipe it off the tiles, let it dry. As long as all the oil and grease has been removed the colorant lasts for years and years. I had one area right in front of my stove that the colorant lifted. I cleaned that area again, making sure to get up all the grease and oils and recolored that one section a second time. When I moved out 6 years later it all still looked great.

I got LVT for my current home because I am getting older and the tile was hard on joints (I had tile throughout the majority of my last home).

When I looked at different flooring options LVT seemed to offer the best combination of traits that I was looking for. Easy to clean and maintain, resistant to damage from water or dog nails, easy on my joints.

I prefer wood flooring in my kitchen because tile absolutely hurts my back. I have had wood in all my kitchens but when I moved into my current house, I couldn’t figure out why I was getting backaches. My sister pointed out that I had tile, which got changed to match the rest of the wood floor when I redid my kitchen.

If the kitchen floor is visible from other spaces, bringing your wood floor into there will look better. If your kitchen is somewhat enclosed, you can try the suggestions for getting it cleaner. On a design level, it limits your options.

Wood is also so much warmer a look than tile. I prefer tile only in bathrooms.

What are the thought on these countertop. I came to a stone and tile store and saw these. Please advice. They have sand color caninet installed, similar like mine.

Bring home a sample and put it by your floor, and then see how you like it. It looks nice with the cabinets, but, you need to make sure, it doesnt clash with floor too.

Yes I got a sample and here you go. Let’s see what are recommendations

This is the pic of sand color cabinets with both tiles and wooden floor.

It wouldn’t be my choice

What is the fascination with "sand", as it isn't look good with anything.......really?

Well we liked it in the store and ordered it. Now it’s really pain to match with everything. I guess lesson learned. But anyway I will find something. I am not giving up.

The countertop would not be my choice either. It doesnt go with the flooring either. Colors are off, and you have veins in the flooring and veins in the countertops, and they just do not look good together.

What cat_ky said ^^^

It's the flooring that's the problem. I think the cabinets and the counter top work just fine with the wood floor you have in the next room.

@Diana Bier- please suggest some flooring options with colors.

I will look in to flooring if it is really change the overall outcome.

@cat_ky. Please suggest the floor with pictures. I would appreciate

Sunil, I posted my preference a few days ago--run the same floor that you already have into the kitchen.

So same floor as living room, then we should be fine.

Yes, the same floor as in the living room, will go with those countertops, but, my understanding was that you didnt want to change the kitchen floor. If thats still the case, then, what you need is a countertop, that goes with both the cabinets and the kitchen floor, and it has to be a countertop with no veining in it, like the one you are showing above. A creamy color countertop might work good.

The cabinets try do not look good with that floor. No matter what countertop you use, the cabinets still will not look good with that floor. Your cabinets have already been ordered and unless you can ask for a color change, it sounds like you are stuck with them, so I'd look into getting good flooring first, and then decide on countertops.

The wood floor in the living room looks less horrible with the kitchen cabinets than the tile floor does, but it still wouldn't be a top choice. How long ago were the wood floors installed and could you even get wood that is still an exact match?

I do love a wood floor in a kitchen but because of a potential miss match with the living room floor, I'd look into getting some other color of tile floor for the kitchen.

I'd probably go for a grey tile verging on a slate look.