Coordinating with walnut flooring

My wife and I are building a house this fall, and have begun selecting the materials/colors for the interior. Our builder had quoted his standard materials, which are carpeting in bedrooms, oak flooring in kitchen,dining,living, oak cabinets, linoleum in baths, oak trim&casings and pine 6 panel doors.

We're basically sick of oak. So we picked a walnut strip flooring with clear finish (a medium/dark brown), for the living/dining/kitchen areas. But now we're unsure how to coordinate the trim, doors, cabinets to the walnut coloring.

Do we try staining the oak trim & casings, and pine doors to match/compliment the flooring? Or should we go with a painted trim? Same question for the cabinets?

What style are we looking for? A simple clean look.... We'd love to have some outside input, our builder basically thinks we're crazy...

I've seen lovelly floors done in alternating planks of pine and jarrah (jarrah is a very dark reddish wood)

I think maybe what you need to do is find a theme, an idea as to what you are looking to acheive in the room...maybe look at the Arts and Crafts movement to see if you like that... they used a lot of dark wood. Gothic and tudor houses. Just try to hunt out as many examples of the use of dark wood as you can find until you see something you like. Was it Winston Churchill who sent back a dessert saying 'This pudding has no theme.'? Well, you get the picture... you want to have a theme because without theme you get a bland mess that looks nothing despite all the money that went into creating it.

A good thing to remember is that it is easy to paint a stained door or skiting but a right PITA to strip a painted skirting... thus stained woodwork has a lower worst case scenario risk than painted woodwork.

Maybe you are crazy with getting such a mix of finishes. It may look boring now to do it all the same, but remember that walls, curtains, furniture and accessories can make each room look startlingly different despite the shared aspects.

If you get any cool ideas, pop back here and let us know.

If you've never used an interior designer, this might be time to try it. We found someone who was willing to work by the hour, suggested paint and wallpaper colors/patterns, furniture arrangement, etc. while sticking to our budget and our constraints in keeping most area rugs and furniture. She was so much better at seeing the 'big picture' (much as I love studying fabrics and rugs and wallpaper, I am paralyzed by too many choices!). My husband and I agreed that her help was invaluable. Best money we've spent in a long time. If you can find someone you're comfortable with, you might give and interior designer a try.

Thanks for the advice. My two favorites are 'wood goes with wood', and the quote 'Style is knowing who you are,.....'

I think we're going to talk with a int. designer, and hopefully they can help us define the style we're looking for (we know what we want, but don't know how to describe it)

Here's a link to a house which has an exterior style similar to ours..

I live in Australia and we don't do so many timber places... there are big timber houses in Queensland called Queenslanders, and there are various transportable homes, and there are a lot of timberframe bungalow type things that were mostly put up by government housing authorities post war to create dormitory suburbs for factory workers. But no nice timber houses that are gloriously proud of being made of wood like that one is.

Actually, I have a quote that might please you

'Elegance is refusal' This quote is sometimes attributed to Coco Chanel, sometimes attributed to Diana Vreeland. What it means is that being elegant means knowing what to say no to, because to be elegant you need to focus your look rather than let it be chaotic and without theme or style.