Coordinating wood floor with wood cabinets: helpful tips + trendy combinations

hackrea / November 14, 2021

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Natural wood is one of the most popular and, let’s not be afraid of this word, respected materials from the interior design point of view. Environmental friendliness, practicality, and exceptional natural beauty make it a top-rated solution for decorating, furniture, and accessories.

Today, wood floors are still organic in both traditional and trendy designs. The same can be said for wooden furniture, in particular wooden cabinets. And the desire to acquire both in your home is entirely justified. True, a very unexpected and, at the same time (if you think about it), quite obvious question may arise here – how to correctly combine wood floors and cabinets with each other?

Indeed, one should not think that the wood is always and everywhere the same. Each type has its shade, graininess, and veining pattern. That is why it is by no means possible to combine wooden floors and furniture randomly – otherwise, you risk getting visual clutter and real ripples in your eyes. Want to achieve natural harmony? Then let’s figure out how to combine a wooden floor with wooden cabinets.

Combining wooden cabinets with wooden floors: recipes for harmony

The choice of specific shades of flooring and furniture is a purely individual matter, even in the case of wood. We will talk about the essential principles of their compatibility later, but for now, we will focus on the features and rules for combining wood cabinets and wood floors.

Avoid tone on tone. The so-called total look is incredibly relevant today in clothes. Still, this technique will not work in the interior – unless, of course, you dream of dying of boredom and monotony. Differences of one, two, three, five tones are permissible between the color of unpainted wooden cabinets and the shade of the floor. However, complete coincidence is highly undesirable.
Don’t be afraid of contrasts. So, light cabinets with a dark floor will make the room spacious and airy. Dark cabinets and a light floor will create a fascinating floating effect. Both solutions are beautiful – we will talk about this in more detail below.
If you have a choice between matte and glossy, choose matte. You can try combining glossy cabinets with matte flooring or lacquered parquet flooring with matte furniture. Plus, matt cabinets with matte floors will look great too. However, if you are tuned to the gloss option for furniture and flooring, it is better to abandon this venture immediately. Otherwise, the gloss will gradually drive you crazy and clean up dust and dirt too.
Don’t lose sight of the wood pattern. In each species, it is more or less pronounced. So, for cherry wood, it is practically invisible; for pine wood, it is quite noticeable; and Zebrano has earned fame for itself thanks to its bright contrasting stripes. If your furniture is made of wood with a pronounced pattern, use flooring without it – otherwise, the interior rhythm will be lost since the veins will go out of order anyway. This principle also works for a floor with a cut pattern.

As you can already understand from these recommendations, in principle, there is nothing complicated in the selection of wooden cabinets to a wooden floor. It remains only to figure out the peculiarities of color selection, and we will definitely dwell on this in more detail.

The palette of woody shades

Do not think that since natural wood tones are natural, they are absolutely neutral – everything is quite the opposite. Indeed, neutral tones do exist – for example, birch and light walnut, bird cherry and ash, which have a very calm beige color with practically no undertone. The rest of the types can be divided into several subgroups based on their lightness and color temperature.

The lightness of woody shades

It is unlikely that you will be surprised by the fact that wood can be light and dark. Based on this, wood species are also divided into two large groups:

Light. This usually includes birch, beech, pine, spruce, pear, alder, ash, larch, cedar, maple, oak, and teak. The color of these types usually ranges from almost white to a pleasant orange hue.
Dark. Dark wood can have a deep chocolate or other brown, almost black, reddish, or very dark burgundy tone. That is why this group includes cherry, bog oak, mahogany and ebony, wenge, Zebrano, dark walnut, and rosewood. Moreover, even dark colors can be both warm and cold.

The temperature of woody shades

Natural wood shades also have their division in color temperature:

Warm. Typically, these are golden, golden brown, honey, and red tones. For example, we can name the same bog oak, cedar, golden walnut, cherry, and hickory.
Cold. Cool shades are primarily whitish, dark gray with a green or blue undertone, as well as dark brown, close to black. This usually includes wenge, ash, pine, maple, and poplar.

How to combine warm and cold colors of wood cabinets and floors, we described above. It is no less interesting to select combinations of light and dark wood. This is what we are going to do now.

Light and dark: trendy combinations of wooden cabinets and wooden floors

There can be really a lot of nuances in the shades themselves when choosing the color of the cabinets for the perfect combination with the flooring. However, if you do not go into details, then there will be only four key combinations.

Light cabinets and light floor

The solution is beautiful visually and, at the same time, in its own way, versatile since it is suitable for almost any interior and any style. Using light wood in cool tones can make the room more spacious, but if you feel the interior will turn out to be too cold, try cool light cabinets and warm flooring with moderate yellow-beige tones.

Light cabinets and dark floors

This is a stunningly harmonious contrast, in which there is a place for both airy, visually expanding details and grounding accents. Perhaps this is the only combination in which the color temperature is unimportant: you can use cabinets in both warm and cool shades, and the dark hardwood floor will undoubtedly create a warming effect.

Dark cabinets and dark floors

A highly inspiring combination for those who love classics and mystery. Dark brown floors in traditional interiors, dark gray and almost black – in modern designs perfectly fit with wooden cabinets of the same lightness. Optionally, you can add light neutral accents or bright spots or leave this mesmerizing and enveloping atmosphere untouched.

Dark cabinets and light floor

The solution is non-trivial and, at the same time, allows to significantly expand the space of the room due to the visual effect. Having chosen in its favor, do not forget about the compatibility of the color temperature – here, it is imperative. As a last resort, use neutral tones.

Thus, we have somewhat schematically outlined the combinations of cabinets and wooden floors in terms of lightness. You can choose the specific shades yourself – we have already indicated the direction for you.

Installing wooden cabinets and a wooden floor – what to do first?

It doesn’t matter what we are talking about – kitchen cabinets, a set of furniture in the living room, or wardrobes and consoles in the bedroom. In any case, designers and decorators still recommend starting with the installation of cabinets. And there are excellent reasons for this:

Saving. You can use much less material by installing cabinets and laying hardwood or laminate around them.
Practicality. Placing heavy cabinets on top of fairly fragile floor coverings such as laminate flooring can deteriorate the cushioning properties then lead to rapid swelling or peeling of the floorboards.
Security. When installing cabinets after laying the floor, the risk of scratching it with furniture while you drag it back and forth is extremely high, and any scratch on the floor is very annoying. That is why it makes sense to preserve the newfound beauty.

The wooden floor with wooden furniture is environmentally friendly, modern, and lovely. Take the time to find and select the perfect combinations – the result will delight you for years to come.