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Paint your oak cabinets! From lighting, cabinet hardware, accessories and more, creating a fresh and modern kitchen with oak cabinets is easy!
Kitchen Oak Cabinets Design Ideas
If you’re not ready for a complete remodel or if painting your cabinets isn’t an option, you’ll love my ideas for working with what you need to create a modern kitchen with oak cabinets. I promise, it can be done!
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Kitchens with them! In both cases and for different reasons, I decided to embrace what I have and get a modern kitchen without painting the cabinets.
Of course, I’m not against painting the cabinets either. In our colonial, we painted our heavy, dark cabinets a light and airy white. You can see before and after photos of that budget kitchen renovation here.
And in our current home, we chose painted built-in cabinets that are so beautiful! The cream kitchen cabinets are so warm and welcoming – that’s all I want.
However, we stayed with oak cabinets for a few years before our renovation and modernized them with these simple touches. We had saved up and were ready for a full renovation, but updating the oak cabinets made living space easier in the meantime.
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This post is full of ideas and images from two different oak kitchens. You’ll also find our Lake Cottage kitchen and our original St. Louis Oak kitchen see! My step-by-step update process is detailed for both kitchens, so keep reading! How to Update a Kitchen With Oak Cabinets (Without Painting Them)
I will walk you through the simple steps I use. These steps worked both times, in two different kitchens. I think you will enjoy seeing how the same process worked in two unique places.
First up, the Lake Cottage Kitchen! When we bought the lake house, I told myself we didn’t need to decorate it all at once. We can relax, enjoy the lake and embrace the charm.
After winter and spring I was ready to liven it up a bit. We wanted to make it feel fresh, without doing major renovations, painting the oak cabinets or spending a lot of money.
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Here’s what the kitchen looked like when we first bought the lake cottage. It had a nice layout and solid cabinets, but it felt heavy and dark with busy wallpaper and outdated lighting.
I started looking for my inspiration – a guide that would help me make design decisions along the way. I knew that a few simple changes could make a big impact in this space.
After visiting Chicago for a work trip, I was very inspired by the water surrounding the city, the history of Chicago and the architectural details of the old buildings. I want to integrate some of those elements into our kitchen design.
The first step in creating a modern kitchen with oak cabinets is to find existing features that you can work with. It’s easy to think that a kitchen needs to be completely redone to be modern, but often there are many elements already in place that work in its favor!
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When we moved into our lake cottage, we immediately closed up the kitchen and removed the wall hangings and ivy. It immediately felt bigger and brighter as its natural charm shone through.
I loved the unexpected sheen the builder put in around the kitchen window and sink. We were also fortunate enough to have neutral appliances, countertops and backsplashes to work with in the Delta showroom.
What are the positive aspects of your kitchen? Maybe it has great natural light, nice neutral floors and worktops, or cute built-in shelves. Even a basic tile backsplash can easily be painted or covered with beadboard for a fresh, clean look that won’t break the budget.
At the very beginning of the process we removed the wallpaper and painted the walls to make the space feel light, bright and open. Painting your walls is almost always a good idea to liven up a space. New paint makes everything feel clean and fresh!
Updating A Kitchen With Oak Cabinets {without Painting Them}
Painting trim white, regardless of your wall color, will make it feel clean and bright. And painting your walls and trim the same color is a great way to make your space feel bigger and brighter.
The most important part of painting your walls is choosing the right color – one that will complement your oak cabinets. Colors with warm undertones, such as creams, beiges and warm greens, will tone down the orange in the oak. Cool colors like brown, blue or purple will really make the orange stand out.
Learn how to choose kitchen paint colors that match oak cabinets here. You can also see the white kitchen cabinets in our Kansas City home here.
Replacing old hardware goes a long way to making a space feel more modern. Hardware and accessories are like kitchen jewelry after all!
Warm Up Your Kitchen With New Neutrals
Look for warm metals such as bronze, copper, gold and copper. They will look beautiful against the warmth of your oak cabinets. Cold metals like chrome, stainless steel and brushed nickel are good, but they can be a bit flat. They often don’t look rich or polished against the wood colors of the cabinet.
In the Lake Cottage kitchen, we replaced the original faucet with a DeltaFoucette in beautiful champagne bronze. Of any single change we made, this had the biggest impact.
The original faucet felt dated while this new one felt fresh and beautiful. It reminded me of the entrance to the Chicago Cultural Center and the trolley we spent the day on – how the handrail and oak complemented each other so well.
We have the hardware that we use in our St. Louis kitchen, repurposed so that it now feels classic and up-to-date. They are hot copper.
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The pulls complement the new champagne gold faucet without competing with it, allowing its classic design to become the focal point of the kitchen. Cabinet hardware makes my oak cabinets feel timeless.
For more hardware ideas, see how I used unvarnished brass hardware in my current kitchen. Brass is a beautiful way to create a modern kitchen with oak cabinets.
As you consider changing your hardware, be sure to read my guide to placing cabinet knobs – it has everything you need to know to get it right.
Don’t ignore your light! Your lighting fixtures greatly influence the overall tone of your kitchen.
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At the lake cottage, I couldn’t resist adding a rattan lamp after admiring the themed lunch while in Chicago. Its large size fills the void above the kitchen window and gives an earlier kitchen a more modern and waterfront aesthetic.
Rattan also provides a beautiful, warm texture. In other rooms, it’s easy to use rugs, pillows and fabrics to bring in color and texture. Opportunities in the kitchen can be a bit more limited, so I liked to introduce another layer of texture through lighting.
After all the other elements are in place, it’s finally time for the best part – decorating! A few well-placed accents are enough to make your oak cabinets feel updated and fresh.
I included a striped rug just below the sink as a nod to the blue streaks on the horizon above the waters of Lake Michigan. As an added bonus, it detracts from the original ceramic tile floors.
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A kitchen is a great place to have fun with rugs. Usually, kitchen rugs are small in size, so it is not a big investment to try something different.
Indoor outdoor rugs work well because they are very easy to clean and maintain. Or an old Turkish rug can bring a lot of charm and warmth to any space. Whatever you choose, get all my top tips for buying a rug!
To accent the original oak cabinets and porcelain sink, I also added a kitchen towel in a beautiful scallop pattern. It reminds me of the breathtaking stained glass ceiling of the Chicago Cultural Center.
A few years ago I set out to make simple, inexpensive changes to love our kitchen a little longer. We were saving up for a full renovation so I didn’t want to paint the oak cabinets.
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Just like the inspiration I found on my trip to Chicago for our kitchen update, this kitchen upgrade also came from design inspiration! It was Martha’s original Turkey Hill kitchen, so warm and full of oak tones and lots of brass trim.
I loved all the warm copper accents and textures in her kitchen. It looked classic, warm and inviting – just what I wanted for my kitchen.
First I looked at what was already there. The wall colors made the kitchen feel small and dark, but I knew it was an easy fix. It was a nice layout, especially with the island. The cabinets were also in good condition, and the counters and backsplash were neutral.
With a few simple changes, I knew I could get it out of the kitchen