Have you considered painting the island cabinets?

How would painted bead board work for you?

What's the overall look for the rest of the house?

The rest of the house has the same colored oak around the fireplace and the molding. Oak doors, oak everything. There is a ton of oak in that house.

If I were to paint the island, but keep the oak cabinets what would be a good color for the island to be? Consider the quartz will not be light or dark but somewhere in the middle.

How about a nautical blue, or black?

Dummy doors to match the cabinets an option? Just a thought. I find the false doors always spruce things up.

Where could I find dummy doors? I don't know if nautical blue or black would clash too much if I painted the whole island. I'm not sure any color would go good.....white maybe? This is tough! I wonder if I could get a whole new island for not too pricey.

I would definitely paint the island. Maybe a nice neutral gray. Are you doing a backsplash? What colors will be in it, pull a color from it or the granite.

Barker Cabinet and Door in Oregon. Lots of threads here of entire kitchens of Barker cabs. Easy to assemble, beautiful product. I'd take this opportunity to build a bigger island with storage if you have room for one.

Ask This Old House had a show where Tom and Kevin went to HD, got some cabinet boxes off the shelf and made an island, even put it on casters. It probably is on YouTube and they made it look so easy I might even be able to do it.

Or you could embrace the grain as a design statement, I think it looks pretty cool. Will you have seating there?

You mentioned that it feels dated, and it's not just because of the wood grain. The lack of base molding, drawers or cabinets, side paneling, and the size is what makes it dated. It's basically a box, so that needs to be addressed. Do you plan to have seating? It doesn't appear to have enough overhang for seating, so if you want storage instead, you can add cabinets to the back, cover the side with one or two door panels, and add a beefier base molding. You can even add legs. That's basically how my peninsula was built--24" deep cabinets on the kitchen side, 12" deep cabs and shelves on the dining room side. The end panels are cabinet doors.

I agree with May Flowers on the moulding. If you want to keep things easy, I'd go with simple moulding like in the pic and paint the island. Or you could stain it a dark espresso color for contrast. I've used the General Finishes Java Stain before & it is pretty easy once you adequately prep.

There is no space for seating because the refrigerator is behind the camera in the photo I have provided.

Would staining it dark make too much of a contrast to the floor? I'm not willing to redo the floor. I'm really not sure what color I would paint the island with the floor being the way it is. The granite and backsplash is still to be determined but will not be real light or real dark.

My neighbor has medium tone oak cabinets and a small island like yours. Her perimeter counters are granite with splotches of black in them. She painted her island black and put a butcher block top on it. The oak grain is subdued considerably by the black paint. The painted island made a big difference in the look of her kitchen. Maybe you could use one of the colors in your new countertops as the color for your island and perhaps use a different type of countertop on the island too.

I stained my bathroom cabinets very dark. They are like a chocolate or coffee bean color. I can't see the grain, but I can see the pattern of the grain. I think it would be dark enough that it wouldn't look weird.