Thanks for the post, skmueller. So you are doing dark cabinets, but not as dark as the floor? I was thinking this might work in our case as well. Our flooring is verging on black, but there is dark brown tones in there and I thought we may be able to do our cabs that color. Do you have a picture that is similar to what you plan to do? I've been trying to find some good pictures showing a very dark wood floor with cabinets that are slightly lighter than the floor...not finding many. To go darker then our floor we'd basically have to do black, which is why we were thinking of doing white uppers. Personally, I'd like to do a very dark stain on all the cabs. Nothing against white paint, but it bothers me a bit that we'd be covering up the grain of the maple cabinets. If possible I think I'd still like to do all dark cabs with light paint, backsplash, and countertops.

I just ordered new cabinet doors and drawers today! We moved into our 80 yr old house about 3 years ago. The kitchen was updated by the previous owners - granite counters, tile floor, stainless appliances, etc. The layout works pretty well and the storage is good. However, the cabinet doors are not my style. I wanted something more traditional. Like yours, the cabinet boxes were in good shape. Found a cabinet company who can provide me with new solid wood doors and drawers. They use Conestoga Wood for clients who want to reface. Someone from the cabinet company came out, measured every door and drawer, showed me lots of samples and spent a lot of time with me to make sure I get the look I want. I am replacing some of the solid doors with glass ones. I am getting the doors painted and glazed by the factory (a warm white with coffee glaze), but I had the option of different woods and stains or unfinished. The cabinets will come hinged and with the hardware I picked out. However, we will need to paint the exposed cabinet box fronts (the doors will be full overlay, but the outside of the cabinet boxes will still show when opened.) They will provide the same glaze as the doors but I will have to color match the paint. The painting should not be too bad and since the hinges will be placed to match the location of the current ones, all we will need to do is screw in the doors in the existing holes. Can't wait to get them--with the new doors & drawers & new hardware and new paint on the wall I will have a brand new looking kitchen at a fraction of a total reno!

no brown or yellow, really ? that leaves you with about 25- 35 percent of the color spectrum, plenty to work with. i'm going to stand on my head to study these pictures:-). you understand that a complimentary and contrasting colors are at the opposite side of the color wheel? the complimentary color to your cabinets is a light green . how about a drift wood stain (light warm gray) with a hint of green? it sounds weird , but it'll give you the contrast you want in the kitchen, in the dinning room? who knows. that's all i've got.

What great feedback! Thank you! My main concern is getting rid of the honey oak wood/grain. I love the look of wood, but not this color of wood for our house. We re-painted, re-carpeted, and re-fixtured our whole house last summer (replacing 12 ceiling/'boob' lights with recessed LED lighting. What a difference! I’ve uploaded more recent, mostly de-cluttered pics. For those concerned, the “boob” light was replaced last summer with the other fixtures. :) Sink light was from Houzz (https://www.houzz.com/products/progress-lighting-p5050-fresnel-lens-1-light-6125w-mini-pendant-prvw-vr~17052352?lid=7007403). A recessed can was not possible due to the slant of the ceiling/roof. Once we do these renovations, the lights may need to change again, but we will see... We will move forward with hiring a KD and pricing out refacing vs replacing the cabinets. What fun to design a more functional space! Appliance garage, functional pantry, deep drawers, under-cabinet lighting, etc.! Our island is quite functional for our life, so will plan to keep it. Maybe add the deep drawers on it and extend to contain the trash can. All depends on the overall budget, though. I am very afraid of wood floors in a kitchen. We do a lot of life in our kitchen, so don't want to worry about inevitable water damage on wood floors. One more thought... recommendations on painting all new cabinets white versus keeping wood (different than honey oak - more like the table). It seems like the space would look too closed in, Especially with a new refrigerator upper cabinet and new pantry. If we go with painted white cabs, we will replace with stainless appliances. Granted, I've not done this before, so recommendations are welcome! Also, thoughts on continuing a white tile backsplash up and around the sink window versus cutting off at the normal height?