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clt96881 Paint the cabinets! Consider bringing in your choice of colors to really modernize the kitchen. Depending on your taste, you can either make them a soft, buttery color, or an earthy green, or even two-toned... With one color on the trim and another corresponding or punchy color on the inside.

ccdavis22 I would keep the floor the same and paint/antique the cabinets. Usually, do it the traditional way but Rust-Oleum has a good product. I Here's the website. I couldn't link it. http://rustoleumtransformations.com/



Here are some before and after pictures of my kitchen. The picture shows black appliances but we now have a stainless microwave and dishwasher. We always get compliments.

Natalie Hi---yes paint the cabinets. Pics for inspiration. Check colors: SW 6084 Modest White with a top glaze (applied on/off) of SW 6082 Cobble Brown. Trust me, it will do wonders for your space. Good Luck and keep us posted. :) [houzz=Cranbury Design Center 1][houzz=Cranbury Design Center 2]

Positive Space Design How about the addition of white countertops? Then adding new brighter hardware to the cabinets....

Peg Silverwood It you really want to spend very little for now, change out the hardware on the cabinets. A large rug in the center of your kitchen would soften all of the wood. Look for something that is very simple in design perhaps with some black scroll type design.

onthefence Sometime ago I saw someone who stained their oak cabs a dark espresso color. They looked breathtaking! Another thought if budget allows, replace the upper doors with a plain shaker door then stain. The cathedral panel gives it a more traditional look IMO. If you want more modern, you'll need a less ornate door.

Deborah Butler, Brickwood Builders I would replace the doors before painting. The dramatic cathedral arch will date the room no matter what you do.

creeser I like the idea of restaining them a darker color. Hate to see good wood painted over.
[houzz=
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feeny Your floors are beautiful, so don't touch them. And everything else about your kitchen looks up to date--the appliances, granite, etc. I think either staining the cabinets darker or painting them would be good options. It's true that the arched style of the doors on the upper cabinets dates them, so refacing those doors would be ideal. But even if that isn't in the budget, a good quality paint job can do wonders. Here is a kitchen with cabinets just like yours painted white, just so you can see the effect:

Piotr Matynia Painting cabinets entails certain consequences. It will be difficult to go back to the previous version. The solution here is to use foil and glued it AFFAIRS of the cabinet fronts. You can also use other solution, which is the lining bright kitchen floor tiles. The second solution will emphasize color cabinets.

teresabieber I also used the Rust-Oleum product CCDavis22 used and I highly recommend it. One kit will cost you less than $100 and if you do not mind some hard work you will get amazing results. I went from the yellow oak to a dark walnut.

crillb1 Thank you everyone for the awesome Ideas. It looks like the cabinets received a unanimous vote. I really like the idea of restaining them a dark expresso color. I never even thought to reface the cabinets doors to update as well. A few follow up questions...
1. Where can I purchase just the cabinet fronts/doors?
2. Should I just replace the upper cabinet doors?
2. Teresabieber- did you sand all of the cabinets down before you stained them? Where did you find the Rust-oleum product?
3. Does anyone have suggestions, either online or in stores, to find neat modern hardware? I feel like some of the "big box stores" are very generic.

Thanks again! I really appreciate all of the great responses.

sandkshouse teresabieber, what a difference. Looks awesome.

cahabamama I think your kitchen looks great as it is, but what I really love is the gorgeous frigerator. We want to purchase a similar style frig, but I worry that the top right hand door will not fully open. How is this working for you?

Carolina Photo To Go LLC You can order new doors for cabinets from either Home Depot or Lowes although my son got some from an online site. You have beautiful floors. I would get a lg area rug and would not go to a kitchen section-too many roosters. I have oak floors and cabinets and have a brown zebra print. I clean it with a Hoover steam cleaner. Some of them can clean hard woods too! I though have one for hard floors and sep for carpet. Money well invested, they suck up the dirty water instead of moving it around and clean better. I would go for a granite countertop in cream with a veining that picks up the color of your cabinets. They are spectacular. Go to more than one shop for pricing and to see what is available Bring sample home to to look at it I your light and make sure it does not crumble- most granite is durable but I had a sample crumble in my hand. Have fun!

sandkshouse I like the idea of staining / transforming / painting them a dark color.

feeny @Carolina Photo: I'm giggling at your "too many roosters".

Natalie You can save money by only changing out the uppers. You're leaning toward dark cabs? Perhaps you should only do the lower dark and light on the upper cabs. Either way, your stools will blend into the cabs so keep that in mind. Perhaps a few more pics of adjacent spaces could give us a better understanding of what your preferences are. If you would add more photos that would be great. :)

onthefence crillb, glad to hear you like the idea of staining. I think it's going to be gorgeous. A couple thoughts for your last questions -
1 - as someone suggested you can get the doors from any big box store. There are quite a few online vendors too though.
2 - I would replace just the uppers doors. The lower doors/drawers seem to be a modern style.
4 - A couple online vendors I know of (but have never used) are knobs4less.com and myknobs.com. Another one that has a broad selection of modern hardware is ikea! Just search 'cabinet knobs' in their search box and you'll get 7 pages worth!

sholmin Your wood floors are an asset that a lot of people are installing in their kitchens. Ideally, white cabinets would open up your kitchen and make it feel larger. Sounds like you want to do a dark stain. If you do both lower and upper cabinets in a dark stain, it's going to make your kitchen considerably darker. Natalie's right, a lot of people are going with dark lowers and painted light or white uppers right now. In either case, from what you said, I'm not sure you have the money for granite countertops right now, but you could lay a backsplash to open things up. White or light subway tile, or even gorgeous glass, which you may be able to swing because you don't need a lot of it.

sholmin Knobs4less & myknobs are good sources, and you might check Overstock.com. Sometimes they have great deals on packages of 10 or 25 knobs or pulls.

ckanters Hi,
I honestly would not paint the cupboards yet. I think that if you changed the knobs, added a backsplash and painted the walls you would have a notable improvement and break from the oak. I'm not sure if you have under the cabinet lighting, but I would also add this to brighten up your space.

crillb1 Thank you so much again! Wonderful Ideas. My only concern with doing white or creamy colored cabinets is that it would blend in with the wall and not stand out. Does anyone agree? Thanks @sandkshouse for the visual of the dark! I love the idea of a backsplash but wondered if that would look out of place since the granite creeps up the wall a bit?

onthefence crillb, another idea for upper doors if all dark doors seems too dark is that you could order some or all of the doors as ready for glass panels. When you get the door, just have the glass cut at a local glass shop. There are a LOT of glass selections available - some more opaque than others. The photo here shows I think frosted glass which will hide a lot ;-)

Tracey Lamoureux

Ahhh...also found one where the glass is a little less white and the cabinets a bit lighter as well.

Kitchen

Natalie Something like these attached pics for backsplash, and none would blend into the wall because there is pattern/neutral color. The 4" backsplash is fine-but it could be removed... Hope this is helpful... :)
[houzz=Stonica Urban Wave stone mosaic][houzz=Corus stone mosaic][houzz=Engraved marble mosaic][houzz=W34 Modular Black Metal & Glass Mosaic]

creeser *L* Carolina Photos... I noticed that too! Every time you look at kitchen stuff, they want to toss in a hand full of roosters. I even saw a rooster kitchen light somewhere. Now when did it start that roosters were a kitchen staple? *L*

sholmin Hi. I just finished a job for a client who chose dark wood cabinets. The cabinets are beautiful, but his kitchen looks about half as big as it would have with white/cream cabinets (even though we did a light floor tile, light handmade ceramic back-splash, and pale blue/green granite counter tops -Costa Esmerelda - to balance the wood).

You would definitely have to paint the walls a color if you went with white/cream painted cabinets. Lots of color choices, just make sure it's not too deep. Also, everyone is right about the arches in your uppers: for contemporary you would ideally replace these, if it's in your budget.

Not knowing your design taste, this is just a wild thought, but I'd like it: You mention teal as one of your design colors. The counter tops you have now are serviceable but not exciting. If it will be a very long time before you can replace them, what would make them most attractive, in my opinion, would be to paint your cabinets a pale greyed blue, or blue/green. The color in the cabinets would all of a sudden make your neutral counter tops pretty. I'd put in a back splash of mirror tile or glass with nickel hardware to nail contemporary. Designer Jeffrey Bilhuber has done some fabulous blue kitchens.

More thoughts in my next comment.

Deborah Butler, Brickwood Builders We have used Amrican Door and Drawer. http://www.dwightwatt.com/americandoor/ . There is another one we used but will need to look it up. What you would be ordering is an unfinished door since you are going to stain or paint it.

Here is a kitchen that was done last year in this area. It was a light oak and was restained by a faux painter. This is not paint, it is stain. It was not our project, but I understand that it was in the neighborhood of $4,000.00 to do the staining. There were some new cabinets added in and some were reworked prior to staining. Oops, it's a pdf file, can't load. If you send me an email, I can send you a copy. Just go to my profile for email address.

Barbara Griffith Designs I would strongly suggest painting the cabinets creamy white or off white with a dark glaze. The Rust Oleum product is fantastic to use. The reason I would not stain them darker is you are almost in "wood" overload if you have a lot of other oak surfaces. Choose a highly patterned backsplash something very striking that will draw the eye, with under cabinet lighting and the arch of the doors will go away and you save the expense of upper doors. And yes, paint your walls & ceilings a great taupe or gray color or at least a shade with "body". Good luck to you.

mpoulsom I love gray cabinets...may not be modern enough looking for you, but would be beautiful. Even a dark cream color with a gray glaze would be nice! See if I can find a pic for you.

Deborah Butler, Brickwood Builders I bookmarked this thread that contains a picture of cabinetry done by a homeowner with the Rustoleum as everyone talks about how great it looks and we have no experience with it. I was shocked when I saw this. Maybe this is not typical, but based on what we have seen of homeowner diy painting jobs, my guess is that it is.
http://www.houzz.com/discussions/162472/RUSTOLEUM-CABINETS

crillb1 Thank you everyone for the many ideas and suggestions. We will nail down a budget and get to work on making this happen! Stay tuned for the finished product!

onthefence crillb, can't wait to see your final product! Best of luck to you that everything turns out exactly as you're envisioning.

Robert kiejdan Add some color to the back wall add back splash. If you can affored it add some hand made color 4x 4 tile to the backsplah. Replace light fixture with some thing more interesting.

ckanters HI,
I thought I would show you what a picture of a what a little backsplash tile, new handles paint and updated lighting can do. I hope this helps.

designideas4me well .. how do you really feel about the oak grain? I personally hate mine. So if you stain it.. it will show.. trust me..I can show you pics of mine.
And what was said above is true. the door style will always look dated. Thats what I feel about mine and another reason I hate them. They are not a full overlay and no doors can be made to fit a non frame less box for full overlay. you can put the hinges inside.. I can tell you how.. and that may help a bit. European hinges. I have tried many things with my cabinets. Depends on your budget and what you can be happy with.

teresabieber.. your cabinets look great but your lucky you didnt have a thick open oak grain.. are those even oak?

Peg Silverwood.. It came out very nice. What do you mean my exterior paint? For outside the house? Was it a semi-gloss? Did he spray it? thanks


ccdavis22.... great job.. so you used rust-olium and painted the cabinets what? antique what? I dont understand what color you used. It came out very nice.

hmschoolmom Having just painted my kitchen cabinets since we had so much wood going on also I would encourage you to do so.
Here is a link to our before/after: http://www.maranathamusings.blogspot.com/2012/12/kitchen-before-and-after-well-almost.html?m=1

We worked hand in hand with pros and what we used was Benjamin Moore Advance. We used a paint sprayer.
Your granite is beautiful. I'm sure you can find a nice color. If you like anything from traditional to French country, shabby chic or a glam look, your arched cabinet doors will look fine painted. We chose to use a stain on the molding to accentuate.

A dark espresso color is lovely but may make your kitchen feel a little smaller and claustrophobic in my opinion. I think with your peninsula it won't work as well as with an open concept. (2 cents worth)

Your appliances are great. My fridge is very similar and I LOVE it. The only thing I love more is my single basin sink. :-)

I can't wait to see what you decide. Don't let painting wood scare you. Your oak has already lived its life and needs to enjoy a mid-life change. :-)

designideas4me hmschoolmom.. and .teresabieber
Please tell me more. Did you spray the cabinets first with a primer or just use the products in the kit? Did you do it yourself? In the garage? set up a booth with plastic etc? can you tell me more details so maybe I will try this. I have looked at a few sprayers and some are a bit heavy to hold a long time. Did you use the glaze step? Does that just make streaks in a vertical pattern or does it seep into the oak grain and enhance it? Thank you

Peg Silverwood designideas4me , I think you are asking me about the paint that was used on my cabinets. My painter used a Benjamin Moore exterior paint satin finish. and he did take off the doors and sprayed them. He hand painted the rest and did an amazing job. There was a clear glaze over the top of which I don't remember the name, but can look if you are interested in knowing. The reason he used the exterior was because of the sun shield that paint has in it. My kitchen faces the south and I have lots of windows. The cabinets are oak and the paint turned out beautiful. I do know that he took a while painting several light coats for great coverage. Patience will get you a great result. ;D

Robin Kuppusamy I have the same problem.. you'll want to completely get rid of your old cabinets once you start looking at doors. And, since you did granite first it will break if you move it. I've had this same dilemma for 8 years. It was 8 years ago we put granite in without tearing out cabinets. My biggest regret ever.

I am painting mine a creamy white and distressing them. I plan on using bead board in my panels (I don't have arches). Honestly, I am ready to gut my kitchen now after suffering the horrible oak on oak. My backs and sides are fake wood (hence bead board) and are a weird shade of brown.

I found instructions in the link below. It's the best I've found thus far. In her blog she has more pics showing how she contrasted with a set of black cabinets. I feel your pain :( I wish people understood that's not only is it nice, but it's also pretty to mix wood grains and colors.

http://timmonsfamilylemonade.blogspot.com/2010/11/kitchen-cupboard-makeover-part-ii.html?m=1

Crystal Shepherd I agree with making the cabinets darker or white and changing the hardware. Also,I'd seriously put in a backsplash. It shouldn't be too much for that size kitchen.I think it makes it look like a kitchen instead of a room with kitchen stuff in it...Also paint the walls. I look at rentals all day and this looks like one,it has soooo much potential! I love how shiny your stainless steel is! I can tell you really take care of them.

designideas4me hmschoolmom.. you did a nice job. So you sanded and sprayed? Is that correct? You put in glass and an island? You really did a great job.

designideas4me Robin Kuppusamy... I read thru that link. what is bead board? I mean yeah all these painted kitchens look nice but deep down knowing how picky I am I will never really be happy with painted oak cabinets. I want a super modern look and that cant be achieved with these cabinets. This is why I held off putting in a gorgeous piece of granite 2 years ago and I am still trying to figure out what to do. This is why I stopped sanding because I keep thrwing away more money to try to create something that cant be created. Now on the other hand if your house is not super modern and you are ok with not having a frame-less cabinet that has spaces between the doors and is builder grade than by all means paint it and spend 5k on back splash and granite. I think I will just save and live with no doors at this point. I just dont see the point. I am too picky.

hmschoolmom @designideas4me: we set up a paint booth in our garage. Since we did a whole remodel, we painted whole cabinets out there. As for the glazing on my white cabinets, I did not glaze the whole door. Only the molding. And since I was mixing old and new I was selective in what trimwork I glazed to make them coordinate and match better.

None of the box stores had cabinet doors where we live unless we ordered custom and that would have cost us as much as new cabinets in the long run.
To paint cabinet doors, sanding and primer is a must. Don't cut corners if you want them to look good. If you can, hire a reputable painter to do it right. That's what we would have done in hindsight because it was a LOT of work but very worth it.

The box stores also only carried basic glass and the glass shop was limited as well and I didn't want my kitchen glass insets to look like shower doors so I went to a custom door builder who sold custom glass and he cut the striped glass panels for me. I've included pics below of our paint booth and hubby painting, and details of our painted doors.

hmschoolmom About hardware: we avoided Lowe's and Home Depot because they cost unnecessarily more. (2-3x more) We bought knobs and pulls new from a dealer on eBay. :-) It shouldn't be too difficult to find what you like online. Find a style, capture the name or style and google. For example- We liked a traditional style in oil-rubbed bronze for our cream cabinets available on overstock.com pack of 5 for $14.39. Better than paying $7 each our Lowe's. Finding on Amazon can save you shipping as well.

Susan Jablon Mosaics Hi crillb1!
I think the addition of a backsplash would really make your kitchen feel complete. You could add more of a modern touch with stainless steel which would look especially beautiful if you do make the cabinets darker. Or you could bring in a shade of teal to tie in to the rest of your home's decor. Here are some nice options from our website: http://www.susanjablon.com/stainless-steel-tile-mixed-polygons-mosaic.html http://www.susanjablon.com/9313445.html

Sara Parker I think it looks great as is, but if you need a change, how about adding colour to the walls and backsplash? Or,change out some of the doors (but save the old ones in case you hate it.)

design happens If the budget allows replace the cabinet doors to update them and stain with a expresso wiping stain. The addition of a backsplash (stainless options) would further enhance the space. If the budget does not allow for new doors, restain the existing cabinets and do a backsplash.

Butterfly Yao Actually your existing flooring and cabinet colors are very nice. I wouldn't change the flooring if I were you. And oak doors are very hard to repaint, their grains are too strong, if the cabinets doors can be repaint perfectly I like the white color or dark brown stain. Or I think there is another plan, just change the counter top color, and put some new wall tiles.

G3 Studios Decorative Painting As a faux finisher I normally lean towards the off white with glaze idea but in this instance I LOVE the dark espresso idea! It will be more work but the dramatic end result will be well worth it. The arch is a tad dated but if you went dark enough I think they would disappear as long as the hardware got updated. Can't wait for the after pics.

hmschoolmom What sort of furniture do you have/like? If you lean toward contemporary/modern then the espresso color would work. If you like traditional, French country, cottage style etc, then paint in the lighter tones with pinstriping or a glaze. The cathedral arches will look fine if you opt for the latter, but if you go the espresso route, to complete the modern look, replace the doors. Otherwise it will always look a little country or traditional.

The walls should be painted either way to add interest.

A stainless steel backsplash will be a pain to keep clean (just saying') but will bring a very contemporary look. I would opt for a creamy stone tile backsplash in one of your granite colors. Stone or decorative glass tiles will work with the white cabinets--again choose a color for the walls. Tan or brown, olive, red, ochre--anything that complements your granite. All the white has caused the wood to look--well--like a lot of wood. :-)

Your floors are lovely either way.
Your current granite backsplash should be removed if at all possible and another backsplash added will update your look. Your granite is lovely otherwise. No need to face replacement expense.

starbella Did you go dark or white?

Kathy Kuo Home I am delighted to recommend these bar stools for your kitchen. These will divide all of the oak you already have. Also, these will add French Country Style so your kitchen will have a purpose to look that chic.

http://www.kathykuohome.com/Product/Detail/975-French-Country-Medallion-Back-Light-Linen-Counter-Stool

Aslo this kitchen bar cart will also look very rustic in your kitchen, check it out.
http://www.kathykuohome.com/Product/Detail/2593-Industrial-Loft-Mill-House-Raw-Steel-Console-Table-with-Drawers


For more colors or ideas visit our website http://www.kathykuohome.com/