How about a pale French Blue? IMO, it would look great w/your cabs.

This might sound like a lot of work right now, but have you considered painting the cabinets white? I love the chair rail and the wainscoting in the dining room, but your cabinets do not really match that style right now. Your Kitchen would look fabulous with white cabinets and a white subway tile back splash.

No matter what you do, I would suggest changing the hardware to a stainless steel.

In the mean time have you considered a brown/putty color for the walls? I think that I too would go more neutral. Stay away from yellows since your cabinets have a lot of yellow in the wood.

For example a brown like this picture. I think it would really play up your current kitchen cabinets. I would stick with the same color below and above the chair rail.

Brown- Benjamin Moore Branchport Brown, Benjamin Moore Woodacres, Benjamin Moore Stampede, Sherwin-Williams Cobble Brown, Sherwin-Williams Van Dyke Brown (shown below), Behr Traditional.
{{!gwi}}

OK....Here is what I was totally thinking!!!

Here is a link that might be useful: brown info

I like the brown that is in the picture MLP posted above. Also, you might check the dishwasher as some of them have reversible colored panels. A dark taupe or mushroom color would look nice moving up the wall and into your hallway too.

Thank you so much for the responses. I love the brown kitchen posted above! I have been searching all over for inspiration pictures that had cabinets similar to ours and kept coming up with nothing. I would like to try painting them white, but DH is firmly in the "never paint wood" camp. He's a little concerned about such a dark color on the staircase so we are looking at samples like SW Hopsack as a lighter alternative to Van Dyke but is still dark enough to have some contrast with the cabs.

I think I will try to change the hardware to stainless steel. I wish the previous owners had done knobs instead of pulls on the cabinets.

I'm wondering if beadboard would look good under the chair rail and brighten it up a bit. Or would white beadboard look odd with wood cabinets?

I think your cabinets look very nice. They look like they might be maple. What color do you currently have below the chair rail in the kitchen? Wondering because it looks nice from what I can see of it. Maybe go one shade darker than that? Remember a dark color going up the stairs will help hide the fingerprints, so I don't think it is a bad idea.
IF you were considering a backsplash, I would do that first, then paint last.