Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - Two-tone stained kitchen cabinets

I have always regretted staining my kitchen cabinets a dark walnut 25 yrs ago. I was thinking about replacing the doors and going w/ a different design, new hardware and lighter stain, but the frame would still be dark walnut, as I don't want to go to the trouble of stripping, sanding and restaining in a working kitchen. How would it look if I left the frame dark and the doors a lighter colored stain? I guess if I didn't like the two-tone effect, I could have the frame refaced to match the new doors.

If the 2 colors of stain compliment each other you might get away with it.

Mark,

Thanks for the reply, but how does one gauge if the two-tones compliment ea other? Since the frame is a dark walnut, should I go for a stark contrast or subtle difference in the doors?

You might want to get a piece of wood [or several pieces] and experiment with different color stains to see how they will look when set next to your cabinets.

Might be worth a trip to a paint store with any wood you have with the dark stain on it to get some insight as to what might look good with it. Certainly sounds possible to me.

That sounds like a good idea. I'll unhinge one of the cabinet doors and take it in, although can they predict how a stain will look on wood vs the example photo on the can?

Matching stain is what they do for a living. They also know that the same stain looks entirely different on a different species of wood - almost never turns out exactly like the picture on the can.