Creating High-End Contemporary Kitchen Designs With Wood Cabinets

Welcome to our gallery of contemporary kitchen designs with wood cabinets. These kitchens offer inspiration for upgrading your kitchen’s layout, storage, finishes, styles and more. We hope these kitchens will provide plenty of new ideas for remodeling or upgrading your home.

Contemporary Kitchens With Wood Cabinets

Contemporary cabinets often blur the lines between traditional and modern. With clean lines, natural wood finishes and materials, contemporary cabinets look both bold and elegant. Some of the elements associated with contemporary cabinetry are the use of natural wood, simple straight lines & geometric shapes, and few hardware accessories.

Wood Varieties: You can elevate a contemporary kitchen with wood cabinetry by first treating the timber itself as a design statement. When choosing the wood to use consider rift-sawn white oak, walnut, or vertical-grain ash as the straight, consistent grain looks clean and modern while still providing that warmth to brighten the room. For the health-conscious, choose FSC-certified woods, low-VOC finishes, and formaldehyde-free substrates. 

Cabinet Finishes: Using a clear matte urethane or natural oil finish rather than a high-gloss lacquer will provide better results. This is because low-sheen surfaces absorb light softly, letting the grain shine without creating distracting reflections. This fits in better with the understated luxury vibe of today’s high-end remodel projects.

Color Matching: Pair the wood cabinetry with a tight, restrained palette so they remain the focal point. Think tone-on-tone: taupe or greige painted walls. Bring in slimline quartz or porcelain slabs in a complementary undertone for backsplashes. Something like large-format, matte rectified tile flooring in a single neutral shade will not outshine the cabinetry, while still looking stylish and being function. Keeping color variation to a whisper lets the texture of the wood deliver the drama, and ensures the kitchen feels cohesive instead of busy. When color is desired, introduce a single accent tone, such as a deep-green quartzite island top or a muted charcoal range hood, instead of bringing in multiple competing hues.

Cabinet Hardware: In contemporary high-end work, hardware should feel intentional but nearly invisible. Full-height integrated pulls routed into door edges or slim edge-pulls in black PVD, titanium, or antique bronze give just enough jewelry without breaking the cabinetry’s clean lines. To offer a high-end feel, use push-to-open mechanisms on upper cabinets and drawers, but combine them with a contrasting metal-trim reveal on the tall pantry wall for subtle layering.

Lighting: Plan lighting in layers to flatter the wood’s warmth and highlight architectural details. Recessed linear LEDs tucked beneath cabinet bottoms create a floating effect, while narrow-beam ceiling spots aimed at the grain emphasize depth. Balance these with statement pendants above the island—choose open minimalist forms in matte black or aged brass to echo hardware finishes. Install a warm 2700 K or 3000 K color temperature throughout; higher Kelvin values can wash natural woods with an unflattering blue cast and cheapen the overall impression.

High-End Luxury Elements: Countertop selection is critical to signal luxury. Fewer seams and generous overhangs feel bespoke, so invest in a single-slab quartz or porcelain or ultra-compact sintered stone with a subtle vein that whispers rather than shouts. A 2 cm-thick profile with a thin mitered edge keeps things visually light and pairs beautifully with slab-front drawers. If you prefer real stone, honed quartzite or leathered granite in pale taupe or cool gray can offer both durability and tonal harmony with most wood species.

Appliance: Use integrated, panel-ready appliances to maintain the cabinetry’s continuous planes. Conceal the refrigerator, dishwasher, and even wall oven banks behind matching wood panels, while showcasing only select pieces—such as a sculptural stainless pro-range or a flush black-glass induction hob—to break up expanses of grain purposefully. This contrast underscores the kitchen’s professional pedigree without cluttering sightlines.

Here are some contemporary cabinet ideas to help you find the one that is right for you. See our latest gallery of contemporary kitchen cabinets here.

This contemporary kitchen design successfully blends modern and traditional kitchen aesthetics, creating a timelessly beautiful design that will appeal to both modern and traditional design enthusiasts. The paneled solid wood cabinets are rustic walnut paired with glossy white cabinetry, creating a nice contrast between light and dark wood finishes. The countertop material is made of solid white quartz for a modern seamless finish, but one of the two kitchen islands has a waterfall edge to add a bit more pattern.

This is a gorgeous modern kitchen that uses elegant-looking solid mahogany kitchen cabinets paired with white quartz with a flat nosing to create a very modern look, yet still provides additional natural patterns. This kitchen also has massive picture windows by the counters, helping illuminate it and bringing some colors and elements of the outdoors into the kitchen. Since this kitchen is quite large, and large windows occupy the overhead cabinet space, a full-height cabinet was included in the design, and a large kitchen island with additional cabinet storage.

Contemporary Walnut Cabinets

The unique characteristic of this kitchen is the geometric patterns and shapes applied in the design. The kitchen is very simple—teak wood floors, white walls, solid wood cabinets in dark walnut, topped with a white quartz countertop. You will see that the diagonally placed kitchen island has a unique geometric shape that somehow matches the chevron pattern of the backsplash tiles used. It also adds some industrial design elements, such as the bar stools with iron legs and the two pendant lamps over the kitchen island.

The open floor plan makes this kitchen look really big. The living area is not yet furnished, which makes the view from the large picture window really visible from the kitchen side. The paneled kitchen cabinet doors are a combination of special walnut for the large kitchen island and white painted finish for the main cabinets. The massive kitchen island’s countertop is white soapstone with flat edging, while the main kitchen counters’ backsplash is black granite and clay stone mosaic tiles. This modern kitchen provides a lot of preparation surface, which is ideal for multi-tasking and multiple kitchen users, ensuring an efficient traffic flow.

Contemporary Mahogany Cabinets

This kitchen combines mid-century modern and traditional pieces for a unique and refreshing look. The kitchen cabinets have a basic mahogany wood base with a white seamless solid-surface countertop and backsplash. The burnished metal fixtures, solid wood mid-century-style barstools, and the gold drop light hanging above the kitchen island give it a more retro feel.

This is a modern kitchen with a darker overall ambiance. The natural stone cladding on the columns, exposed wooden trusses, and black ribbing paint add a rustic and industrial feel to the space, giving it a unique appeal. Despite the space’s dark feel, sufficient natural light comes from the large picture windows of the house. The kitchen cabinets sprawl across the whole kitchen, especially since there is no space for overhead cabinets. The main kitchen counters have solid wood doors & carcass painted in a light gray color, while the L-shape island/bar counter uses dark mahogany wood finish. The countertop material contrasts with the base cabinet, so white marble was used with the mahogany base, while black granite was used for the gray base.

Contemporary Light Maple Cabinets

Large panoramic windows provide much natural light in this large apartment kitchen, making the space look bright despite the gray ash wooden floors. Since the floors are already dark, the kitchen used a lighter maple wood which pops out nicely against the gray floors combined with brown wooden counters to match the flooring and light granite on the wall units. The result is a very coordinated modern look with a classic touch.

This contemporary kitchen design uses light and warm colors and is seamless and inviting. Wood finishes make it a timeless beauty, and the simple cabinet design will attract those who love simple modern aesthetics. The dark gray granite used on the counters and the whole backsplash walls perfectly contrasts against the light maple wooden cabinets, helping to add a neutral color to the mostly yellow-toned room.

Contemporary Light Color Cabinets

The white floors and walls of the space help emphasize the beauty of the Asian teak wood used on the kitchen cabinets. The wood’s natural horizontal grains add a natural pattern and texture to the space and add a bit of warmth to the overall feel. Gray slate solid surface was used over the wooden cabinets for a smooth, seamless finish.

A gorgeous traditional-inspired kitchen which uses natural teak wood cabinets with a nice semi-matte finish and a wengue stained base cabinet for the large kitchen island. All counters used beige granite stone, and for the backsplash, natural stone subway tiles were used to match the counter top color.

Contemporary Oak Cabinets

Despite the limited space, this kitchen was well-planned, so the space was excellently utilized. It also helps that the kitchen has a large window providing natural illumination for the space, to make it look brighter and bigger. Light oak wood planks were used on the ceiling to create a seamless effect, and the same wood was used for the kitchen cabinets. Black granite was used, and the door hardware used were also in black to give it a subtle industrial look.