Dark cabinets show all the dust. They are beautiful and dramatic if you live with a swiffer in your hand. A shade or two lighter is easier to live with. Cabin or Husk maybe. Depends on the base wood you are using.

Can you bring a sample cabinet door to a stone yard to see for yourself? Then bring a sample of the counter home with you to view in your own space and light with your sample door. It would also help if you posted pictures of your selections so others can see them without looking them up.

it depends on how big the room is and what kind of natural light you have.

What is the flooring?

Haven’t picked out flooring yet. Went to Cambria Visualizer
tool and think I like the smaller vein Lakedale better thank Britanica Gold (first pic). Thoughts? Kitchen is just wood studs right now so nothing to share.

Room is 144 square feet (12x12). One window (3x3) over sink and opens to dining room.

That is deep espresso brown. Much too dark.

Here’s a picture of kitchen prior to fire and installation of Cambria. We’re keeping the same floor plan, except moving dishwasher to left of sink. These cabinets were honey oak. If espresso is too dark, what other recommendations do you have? Don’t want anything like the honey oak.

Are you interested in suggestions to improve the layout? Moving the DW is a great start!

For example - an easy-reach cabinet in the upper corner gives you a lot more usable storage than an angled cabinet. In our last kitchen, I had a sink and range on each side of the corner, like you, and I replaced the lazy susan with drawers on each side of the corner - with the corner itself inaccessible. It wasn't "wasted" space, because the drawers were so very much more useful than the lazy susan.

Eliminating the soffit will allow taller upper cabinets, for more storage.

Last summer we remodeled the kitchen in our current house. We took out honey oak cabinets, and got these instead. The local cabinet maker mixed the stain to our specifications (we wanted a contrast with our new oak hardwood floors).

Beautiful kitchen. Thanks for the advice. Will try a design with easy reach in upper right vs. angled cabinet. Loved having a lazy Susan so probably going to keep it. Like the lighter color so rethinking espresso, but may go lighter. Did you use quartz as backsplash or is it stone?

Stain isnt paint. It looks different on every wood. Dark colors are especially blotchy and awful and blotchy on maple, birch, and alder. But are fine on open grained woods like cherry, ash, and red or white oak. But every wood reacts differently to a stain, depending on the base wood. Red oak always has hints of red coning through. Cherry too. Maple ambers. Alder and red birch turns salmon.

Our counters and backsplash are Taj Mahal quartzite (real stone).

I am wondering what is driving the cabinet color choice . I dislike quartz so can't help there . Espresso colored cabinets scream dated and Chinese cheap . Waht is the rest of the space like the floors for instance . How much light ? IMO this was the time to fix the layout but probably too late now.

Good advice already - if it were me, I’d figure out my flooring first if not doing wood.

You really need the help of a Kitchen Designer. The floors are far more important than anything you are trying to decide between. You're putting the cart before the horse. What relationship does dark black wood have to the rest of the house? A ktichen isn't a separate space, that you close off these days. It has to be part of the home design as a whole. If you don't have dark black wood elsewhere, then that's a big no for having it in the kitchen.

Dark colors will show everything. And when chipped, it will show the lighter wood underneath. Because the way that you get dark wood with woods that don't like to be stained dark is by toning them. Which is basically a clear coat mixed with semi opaque pigments. It's like a thin paint. So, it doesn't wear as well as a stain. That's just one of the reason that you shouldn't try to make wood something it isn't. If you want dark wood, you choose among the woods that are naturally darker, like walnut.

Great advice everyone and thank you! Yes, I probably should have re-thought the layout, but I liked my kitchen prior to the fire and just wanted it back☹️. The rest of the wood throughout the house, as far as furniture goes is much lighter. Going with Scandinavian Designs style. Only thing darker so far is a strip on the bathroom vanities which is walnut.

Who doesn't love a Scandinavian style kitchen?

For your low lit kitchen, have you considered Maple or Birch for cabinets mixed with white to lighten it up? a light floor, either tile or wood to bring more light into the room.

I like this. Thanks for sending. Already have stainless steel fridge and induction range. Would they work as well and bring in white in other areas?

of course, stainless always works.