• To bring an elegant ambiance to your kitchen, choose dark cabinets, which will present a warm, inviting atmosphere. Many cabinet manufacturers make darker-stained cabinets out of wood such as cherry, maple, oak, hickory and alder. Each of these has their own qualities and can give appeal to your kitchen.
  
  

Cherry

• Cherry is a hardwood that makes beautiful cabinets. It provides very rich looking, reddish-brown cabinets that usually darken with age and from sunlight. The wood is usually uniform in texture and grain, although some cabinets may show the large grain or knots of the cherry wood.
  
  Cherry cabinets look great with any type of countertop, but the natural stone ones, like granite, bring out the elegant appearance of the cherry. Any color countertop, dark or light, work well with cherry and a lighter toned wood floor would extend the warm tones.
  
  

Maple

• Maple is one of the more popular hardwoods for cabinets, and with its uniform color and smooth finish, it makes great looking, sturdy cabinets. It is usually not as expensive as the cherry wood cabinets, but still offers value for a similar look.
  
  A light color solid surface, Corian type countertop with a dark color inlayed edge on the countertop and a backsplash with the same dark colors makes a great combination with your dark maple cabinets. Tie in a light tile floor with a few dark tiles interspersed and you'll have an award-winning kitchen.
  
  

Oak

• An inexpensive choice of dark cabinets would be ones made from oak, yet they still provide strong cabinets.
  
  Oak can show the grain of the wood irregularly or you may find some with a straight grain. A stunning kitchen idea is to use dark oak cabinets for a majority of the kitchen and find light beige or a lighter oak for one accented area, like the stove area, or an island.
  
  The combination of the light and dark cabinets gives a very bright and cheerful tone. Using a neutral-toned countertop can complement the difference in wood tones.
  
  

Hickory

• Hickory is not as popular for cabinets and you won't find as many choices in this wood species, but it does make a durable cabinet. Most companies only offer one or two choices of dark stained hickory cabinets, usually in darker brown and black.
  
  Many kitchen designers have computerized programs to input the type and color of cabinet along with countertop colors and even floor color to give customers a glimpse of their finished kitchen. Designlinekitchens.com offers a nice photo gallery of dark kitchen cabinet ideas.
  
  

Alder

• Alder is a medium dense wood that makes a nice smooth, fine-grained cabinet. Alder is not usually found stained to black in cabinets, but is often in the darker brown to reddish tones. Alder wood cabinets may look good with colors that bring out some of the red tones of the wood, like a brown and red flecked Corian or granite countertop. Specialty lighting is another idea to enhance the dark tones of the cabinets.