natesgram, thanks, I've actually seen that link before, and it's what really pushed me towards painting. It really has a lot of helpful info too. As much as I would love to get new doors (shaker is my favorite!), I'm going with paint for now. The wallpaper...yes, I don't see what's wrong with it either. I took a really close up shot just to show the blue specks, but it really just looks like textured cream colored walls. I would like to know if the suggestions to remove it are because it's ugly/dated or more for resale purposes where painted walls are the preference for most buyers??? alabamanicole, now that I look at it some more, I agree the track lighting needs to go. It should be easy and inexpensive ($100-150?) to change it out. I love the look of bronze, but would it work with my ss appliances and ss cabinet pulls? Or should I get bronze pulls and faucet...CAN you have a bronze faucet and a stainless steel sink? Confusing! Also, thanks for your kitchen idea. The rest of my house is decorated with warm creams, reds, greens. I love organic stuff like wicker, stone, metal, and I love shaker style, country style, and arts-n-crafts style. I really like cream cabinets, but I already have enough cream with the counter, the tile, and the wall. The breakfast bar opens into the dining room, which is has cream furniture and red and green as the accent colors. The kitchen doesn't have to be matchy-matchy with the adjoining rooms, but it should flow colorwise. I'm going for a sleek, simple, yet casual and warm look with bluish/green cabinets. Below are kitchen looks that I love. Some won't work with my sleek cabinets, but it's just to everyone an idea of the look and feel that I hope to achieve... I love the color on this wall...if I ever take down my wallpaper! lol I love the warmth and casualness of cream cabinets. My dream kitchen...if I could start from scratch! :) Here, I love how the bottom cabinets are darker than the top cabs. Cute chandelier, and the island color is gorgeous! Ok, since I also LOVE the idea of two cabinet colors, what if I paint my top cabs cream and my bottom cabs blue/green? I really can't decide between my two colors below, and painting all the cabs either color will be too much cream in the room, or too much blue/green in the the room...no? I'm also open to sage green. If I go with using two colors, what if I paint the storage wall like the storage wall below (where the top and sides would be the blue/green color)?

We had them in our last, new home. Back then, I'd never seen them before, thought they were cute & different and insisted on ordering them. :) After 8 years though, I changed my mind and came up with a DYI plan for the kitchen. Since the sides were oak like the trim, I ordered new oak door fronts from HD and in an afternoon, the cream cabinets were gone. I worked one summer, part-time to pay for the darn things and felt really pleased with the make-over. Will have to see if I can come up with a pic. I believe I just painted out the oak trim in the bathrooms and then painted over the whole cabinets. It looked fine! Good luck with the decision.... :)

Melamine is an extremely durable surface and a snap to clean up, and will last far longer than finished wood. With finish types, clear finishes will fail before painted finishes. However, Melamine is usually sold on sheets of MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard). (Not to be confused with Particle Board, though they are similar.) MDF is susceptible to moisture damage if you have a LARGE spill, such as an under sink catastrophe. Thus, while it seems at first a good choice for under the sink, it really isn't. But it's excellent for drawer bottoms. The creme de la creme for a sink cab bottom would be plywood with a sheet of formica adhered to it. This would be custom, but not hard to do.

Can you clarify what you mean by you would not do a painted desk top? The closet companies uniformly recommended doing a Formica desk too for durability rather than melamine like the rest of the built in but said that I could do white melamine to have it all in white. The cabinetmakers said it would all be painted wood in a color of my choice.