I've seen laminate paint kits. I've not used them, but it might be worth checking out at Lowe's or HD.
Diane

What if you just painted the oak and added some hardware? Plenty of people have white cabinets and its fine. Maybe the color can be introduced elsewhere...post some pictures.

palimsest ,this is my suggestion too. The issue is the oak trim pieces is like one big groove. So it is used as a drawer pull. Can you add hardware to that and not look odd?

I guess I would have to see a picture to be sure...

Is there any way you could replace a few of the top cabinets with Ikea oak with glass doors? It would tie in with what you have and they are inexpensive. You can get then in vertical or horizontal wall cabs depending on what your style is.

You could paint the oak a bright color, like apple green. And paint a faux backsplash using the same color. If you put sealer over it, the faux backspash would be easy to keep clean. (Use water based sealer so it won't yellow) Or, if you have the budget for it, you could paint the oak white to match the cabinets and put a backsplash in using plain ceramic tiles in a color. They are very inexpensive at the big box stores.

If you have the funds, you can purchase unfinished paint grade doors and drawer fronts from many vendors and paint them white to match the existing frames. Slab or shaker doors will cost less than raised panel, as would MDF instead of solid wood. We did this in our townhouse before we moved and it looked like brand new cabinets. A 18" x 30" unfinished MDF door will run you about $35-40.

If your doors are standard sizes, Ikea is a good source for finished doors as previous poster noted above. The white 18x 30 Adel door is about $48.

Post this on the kitchen forum. Another thread talked about this and the ideas were:

Put narrow frames around the edges and paint doors and frames for a shaker look. Add paintable beadbard wallpaper in the center of the panels for a cottage look.

Somewhere on this forum someone covered the laminate part in beadboard wall paper and painted the doors and frames. They were adorable. I think it was in a bathroom. You might want to find a random cabinet on CL as a sample to play with.

Amazing transformation! The trick would be to center and line up the beadboard on upper and lowers.

Here is a link that might be useful: beadboard wallpaper on laminate cabinets

I've seen them painted a dark brown and they looked much better (I had those cabinets in a prior apartment kitchen so I know them well!)

Sherwin williams has a new primer that's supposed to stick to anything, so I think that would be a good base to paint them.

I found this on google - a little bold, but how cute!

http://media.onsugar.com/files/2010/06/26/3/434/4343160/317cc64ec844f6a4_studio_apt_kitchen_1_copy.xlarge.jpg

Here is a link that might be useful:

Years back (maybe five or six?) a friend of mine was house hunting...and found a house that was almost perfect aside from the kind of cabinets you are describing. She was going to pass it up (!?!)until I showed her a facelift kitchen over on the kitchen board. That kitchen's owner had painted the melamine and the wood...and added knobs.

My friend and her husband bought the house and are very happy there...and they STILL haven't re-done the kitchen...
It CAN be done!

As I suspected...that thread is long gone. Post your query...maybe that person is still around!
melanie

Those are the cabinets. Great ideas!! Thank you so much!

These are the wall cabinets I was talking about above. I always think that if you really don't like the cabinets regardless of spiffing them up with paint or whatever you are going to tire of them. If you replace a few of the top cabinets into something that will blend for now you will be part way there when you can afford to change the base cabinets. If you do not like these horizontal ones you can stack, Ikea has vertical ones you could blend in. Ikea is cheap! By the time you buy all the supplies to change the look for a tiny bit more you could change the look with replacing a few of the wall cabinets.

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