I went with glazing on both my cherry perimeter cabinets and also the cream island. The cherry is stained in chestnut with a black glaze and the island is frosty white with a van dyke brown glaze. The pics show my sample doors and the actual bottom of my wood range hood. The cream cabinet is my island sink base. I am glad I went with the glazing as it really brings out the details. My cherry cabinets are a raised paned with applied moulding. Hope this helps. Here is a link that might be useful:

OP, please forgive this OT commentary to answer Julie. You can email me, too, if you click on My Page. Julie, thank you for the compliments. It's taking me so long to finish that no one notices anything I do get done anymore! :o) Anyway, I posted something in the forum below about type of paint. As for painting 'pure white', I wouldn't do bright white, but something on the order of Behr's Swiss Chocolate, which is just a perfect, subtle white that will compliment your granite. I painted cabinets as described on the link below. After drying several days, I then took a small palm hand sander with 220 grit and sanded off the corners, edges, and high profile parts on the doors and other areas of the doors to show wearing away of paint. I then took a small 1" black foam brush and used Minwax stain on all of the exposed newly sanded wood, cleaning off excess stain off the paint and doors in about five minutes. You will have to choose a stain to compliment your granite and wood floors. This can be a messy process, so by a couple of boxes of disposable medical gloves. This is the best, easiest way to keep a messy job 'clean'. Especially if you work in the house like I do. Once stained, let it dry a day. Then I mixed the glaze as I described on the web address in this paragraph, except I painted it around all of the edges of the door profile to accent and define the interior areas. (I mixed up about a pint of glaze at a time.) I wanted a more dramatic look to my doors, so I left a lot more product on my doors that the average pro painter. Use a 2.5" sash brush by Wooster. I love Purdy brushes, but for this job, only the Wooster works the best. I know, I tried them all. http://www.sherichase.com/progress/July2008Update.htm . After the glaze, I also did another technique to the doors using an oak colored stain on the raised, thickest part of the door to give it a more golden, rustic look. I have a similar pattern in my kitchen table, except it has a light grey glaze. I did dry-dragging of a large brush across the front face of the doors with the light oak stain. It's subtle, but gives dimension and character when you're up close. I can take a better photo if you like. Let this dry a day. Then I waxed the doors with clear Briwax. Ut takes about five minutes per door or so. Here's where I made a bit of a 'mistake'. I waxed with light brown, but I think it was a bit too yellow, so I'm removing some of it now. Half of the kitchen is waxed with clear, the other half I'm having to really work to get the wax off without messing up my paint job. So even on my photo above, you can see the uppers have brown wax and lowers have clear wax. It's all subtle. Well, I do have some of the brown wax off the upper in that photo. It's going to take some time and I have a lot to do right now. As always, wet sand BY HAND between every coat of anything you put on your doors: paint, glaze, etc. Just make sure the product has cured before you sand. Wet sanding is the best. I gradually work up to 600 grit. I am still working on my doors now and am not pass 320 grit, I believe. I still have to get off that brown wax. It's not coming off like I think it should with the clear wax. That being said, my kitchen photos show myriads of stages and mistakes. You can see my progress at: www.sherichase.com/progress to see where I started and am today. Email me and I'll give you my ph.# in case you need to call. FYI: Only use a hand palm sander to remove wood and paint. Do not 'wet sand' with any electrice machine. All wet sanding is done by hand. Light pressure with the grain, wetting the door with a fine mist spray bottle then wiping off excess with a microfiber cloth. Hope this helps. Here is a link that might be useful: Painting cabinets

Your cabinets are lovely, must you paint them? If you must, I agree with choosing something else first, such as the granite. If you're doing your backsplash too, perhaps go tile shopping. If you fall in love with something, it will help narrow down your paint choices. Easier to do it that way as paint choices are much larger than granite/ tile choices.

The colors do all coordinate, while not the same. I don't like the idea of everything being one color. Having some variation makes it look more custom. Would you suggest just upper cabinets same as fireplace built ins and lower cabinets different perhaps?