Hello Tom,

I’m upgrading my 10 year old tract home kitchen. It is 25 x 15 1/2 feet amd open to the family room. Our light oak cabinets have darkened and oranged over the years to a medium tone but we don’t want to replace them as they are solid wood doors and in great shape. New hardware is a dark grey metal but not black or bronze. We just put in a new porcelain tile floor “saddle tan” which mimics travertine. It goes with cabinets but also has some taupe colors that coordinate with my family room carpet. New stainless appliances are on order. I’m having trouble choosing granite. I love movement and veining and want some black in it. I’d also like contrast since the cabinet and floor are close in color and intensity. I want to play down the orange in the cabinets or at least make it not pop out. I want the granite to be the noticed feature. Two that I like are Saphire Blue, Typhoon Bordeaux. I also like the green background in crema bordeaux from Brazil, but not the apricot color. Tropical Brown was also a good color, but maybe a little boring(it’s everywhere)Do you have any suggestions? Our kitchen is internal and no windows near counters. Not real dark, but not bright either. Depending on the stone I might do a tumbled marble backsplash in the 4 x 4 tiles.

Thanks so much,
Anita
P.S. I love your donation idea! We have 3 sponsor children through World Vision and Compassion International, what a great way to share with others!

Hello Anita,

The goal should be as you mentioned, to draw away from the cabinets and bring life into your kitchen though your countertops. The way to do this is to go with a ‘mixed’ color. All the basics, Whites, Greens, Browns, and even Blues will accentuate your older cabinets if standing alone.

Even though you are getting new stainless appliances, you still need to pick out a granite color with enough color of the cabinets in it so that the cabinets color feel purposeful. This will actually ‘play down’ the cabinets themselves. At the same time, you can accomplish the updating by mixing in a granite color that compliments stainless. I want to give you three colors that will accomplish this given your decor.

My number one choice is Typhoon Bordeaux. It will update your kitchen, give you the interesting and artful center focus that you are looking for, and it will also actually allow your cabinets to compliment it (after you shine them up a bit!).

As backup choices, consider Twister, Amber Fantasy or Mascarello. Your personal taste will either draw you in to one of these or turn you away.
The Mascarello is incredible granite with spectacular clusters of colorful minerals but it might be a tad too dark for your kitchen. If you choose this one, you would want to go with the tile splash as you mentioned. However, a dark travertine splash would look better than light.

The Amber Fantasy can get a little pink, which doesn’t work at all. This is my least favorite of the group but sometimes you will see slabs of this that look like the beach at sunset. Those are a must have! Twister is the tamest of the bunch but works the best with stainless. It continues the taupe/brown scheme so I mentioned this as a possibility.

I think your best choice is here somewhere. I would love to get a photo when it is done! Thank you for supporting the Rock Blog’s World Vision kids.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 6:31 pm and is filed under Answers to Granite Questions..., Granite Choice Advice, Granite Color Help. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.