What is the floor in the rest of the home?Why the generic quartz for the counter ? The cabinets look very dated but I need to see the room. I do not like the flooring with the cabinets but without seeing the space it is hard to tell. Is that real wood for the floor?

Yes, the floor sample is real wood. It is Weathered Oak by Duraseal. The rest of the room/family room is all hardwood (oranged and dated). It also extends upstairs and through the hallway. Cabinets are dated, but i am trying to work with them by updating counter, backsplash, and floor color by refinishing them.

So IMO to put new antyhing o with thos cabinets is a waste of money . The counter you have is the right one for those cabinets there is no way a white fake stone will be an improvement . A new backsplash maybe but is this your style , does the kitchen function perfectly ? IMO this is like throwing good money out the window . As for the flooring why new at all just have it refinished . Maybe I am missing something in the plan. I would advise to stop and wait before doing one thing in thta kitchen if all the resyt of the flooring has to be replaced for whatever ereason then get enough to do the kitchen later and save to do this right . There is atime when dated cabinets have had their day and time for a real change

The plan was to refinish the floors, not remove them. Any color suggestions for the refinishing to improve the look? I was going to do a satin and less glossy finish. Backsplash thoughts? Everyting functions perfectly. I appreciate your input, and am trying not to waste money. I guess it was my style 30+ years ago when we moved in, definitely not my style today. I'd prefer to keep it simple, and are not prepared to redo the entire kitchen.

I would not change the floor color unless I was committed to changing it throughout the house. The things that jump out to me are the arched soffits over the windows and the hood cabinet- remove the soffit from wall cabinet to wall cabinet and get a stainless steel hood that goes to the ceiling to lift the eye. And a new simple backsplash.

The plan is to refinish the floor color throughout the house. Any suggestions?

That countertop is really pretty and will bring light into the room.

You seem to be very caught up with labeling everything you have as dated!

Your wood floors are not dated, they are a classic color for red oak floors. If you try and stain those floor with a gray/lighter tone then that will definitely date the whole space, by mixing finishes/colors that don't belong together.

If this was my space and I really liked the kitchen layout and the quality of the cabinets, I would do the following:

Get rid of whatever is blocking the view/light from the windows or get new windows.

Replace counters with Taj Mahal quartzite. Try and square off the counter on the island, maybe remove the heavy carved legs.

Might consider painting the island off-white to lighten the space.

Replace wood hood with stainless steel hood.

Do an off-white backsplash that goes with Taj Mahal.

Paint the walls off white.

Stain all the floors a nice medium brown.

Replace and add more recessed lights, higher lumens and 3500K

If I didn't love the layout and/or the quality of the cabinets wasn't that great then I would wait a few years and save money to gut the whole kitchen.

In my previous house my cabinets weren't great quality, so not worth adding expensive new counters and backsplash. I waited seven years after we bought, to rip it all out and do a new kitchen. I had the budget to do it earlier, but the house wasn't that old and it seemed wasteful to throw out expensive appliances that I wanted to change.

If all the floors are being refinished… I would start with a provincial sample. It might be too close to the cabinets. I don’t like the current sample- too light and cool. If you are open to it reworking the island to simplify it and then painting it would lighten the space. But we are of course judging from one photo.

^^This.

Since I got a second on that motion here is a very rough sketch showing the concept for floor, backsplash. All colors TBD.

At that point consider repainting the gold soffit to beige to fit the new color family.

Your kitchen is very Tuscan,out of style right now, but appears to be nicely done. Finish the floors as suggested by Hallet, simplify hood ( those rosettes are something special :) ) and backsplash. maybe change wire in upper cupboards to glass. Embrace the style you have as quirk.

@Kylie M Interiors has a great blog post about matching cabinets and floor finishes.

https://www.kylieminteriors.ca/how-to-mix-match-and-coordinate-wood-stains-undertones/

Personally I think the finish you picked for the flooring looks good with the cabinets, but you have to see how the finish looks on your flooring, every species of wood takes stain a bit differently.

Your cabinets look to be in good shape and you say the kitchen functions well, so there is really no reason not to refinish the floors, keep the cabinets and make decisions on counters and backsplash.

There will always be people who say you have to rip out everything, but they may have more money than sense and are not paying for your renovation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your cabinets.

There is also not one perfect countertop material. There are positives and negatives to every last one of them. Pick the one that works best with your kitchen, lifestyle and budget.

Personally, I have never liked the brown spreckled granite. I didn't like it when it was popular and being placed in every home and I don't like it any better today. I would pick a light colored counter and backsplash. Make sure that the product has a good reputation. Some manufactuerers are better than others.

I didn't think about that - assumed quartz was quartz was quartz. Picked a quartz from home depo- made by MSI. It is fine, put it in 2 bathrooms, but after having it installed I learned more about the product and that it is not as good as many of the other quartz products. For this reason I will be using a quartz by Cambria for my kitchen. I'm not sure that something less expensive, like MSI quartz, wouldn't be okay, probably would be okay, as the current counters are formica that was installed in 1970 and still in good shape. (Apparently the people who lived here before me used trivets and cutting boards.)

I have family members that have quartz, marble, granite and corian and formica. The only one that was not absolutly pleased with their choice long term was the one with the marble. She didn't like how etched it became over time.

I do like the way the counter you selected coordinates with the wood of your cabinets and the flooring sample.

If the plan is to refinish floors and leave kitchen cabinets as is, IMO do not match the floor color to the kitchen cabinets color - it turns the room too brown, too dark; go with flooring several shades lighter (floors too dark show lots of dust).

Hoping you are removing the backsplash…I would not change the floors until walls are painted, countertop/ backsplash are installed…