Anyone want to give design advice??

I'm trying to decide on stain color for a new cabinet in our living room, made by an aquaintance woodworker. See pictures below.

The first picture has the unfinished cabinet in the front. He built us a TV cabinet in the same style a while ago; it’s in the background in the first picture and highlighted in the second picture. Now I have to decide what to do with the cabinet. (It's made from hickory, which has a lot of color variation naturally; I don't want that variation, so I definitely plan to apply some sort of stain rather than just a clear finish.)

Options:
-Match the TV cabinet. The two cabinets are meant to be related to each other, so making them the same color seems a reasonable approach.
-Go with a lighter color but in the same color family (rich with red undertones.) Our house has the original chestnut trim, which we have refinished ourselves. We love it, but there is ALOT of darkish wood in our house. So having a lighter color might help lighten up the space. And maybe having the cabinets in different finished would be like a cool variation and keep things from feeling too matchy-matchy. (I wish I had chosen a lighter finish for the TV cabinet, but I can't easily change that now.)

I hope we have these cabinets forever, so it feels like a big decision. Any advice welcome!