If you like vintagey kitchens, a little touchup paint won't be out of place. My kids (2-5ish) banged the heck out of my white cabinets but didn't really do much visible damage. The plumber who acted insulted when I asked if he knew how to remove a dishwasher drawer, though...major damage.

You can get a glazed or distressed style and make dings easier to live with. (I prefer to do my own glaze with dirt--aren't glazed faux grime?)

What about a milk-painted cabinet in a color?

White appliances can look fine with darker wood cabinets, though. Wood is probably easier to touch up. But you should get what you like if you can enjoy the patina.

That's been discussed here
Calling all owners of white

and here

Negatives of white

and here

Are white cabinets a mistake

and here

to those of you with painted cabinets

Personally, I don't like to clean enough to have white. I've had white in 2 kitchens in the past and know it's not for me. I do have someone clean once a week, but daily wiping is a chore I just don't have time for. My children do a lot of putting together their own simple meals/snacks and oddly, they seem not to see the jelly and butter they've left on the fridge handle (or the husband for that matter).

My experience with white painted wood cabinets is that they hang in there pretty well. Well made and finished white cabs are pretty tough- and by tough, I mean strong. Mine didn't ding easily despite toys, baseballs, mini-hockey sticks, etc.
The challenge isn't even the day-to-day cleaning. The greatest challenge is the spills and drips that can settle into applied moldings or that get by you right away and get on the base molding. Those can dirty things up pretty quickly and they are awkward to clean (from a contorted position on the floor and not at eye level with minimal lighting). As we demo'd our kitchen it was interesting to note how muck ickier things got as you went further and further away from eye-level. Eeeek!Certainly, a more diligent cleaner than i would have done better at getting those spills more quickly! And would those things still have happened on stained wood? Of course, they just wouldn't have been as noticeable!
On the other hand if you are reusing appliances (and I did some of my mine) you can always paint them. I have a friend who was recently divorced and bought a house with oak cabinets and almond appliances. She painted everything black and it looks amazing!
Also, if all new appliances aren't in the budget, look to Craigs list and the internet for better pricing. Our cooktop, stainless steel dishwaswher and stainless french door fridge came from CL and totalled under $1000.

And when you find yourself at the point where you have to hold the menu at arms length, you might not even find the stuff at eye level either :) Unless you're wearing your new fancy Walgreen's reading glasses! It's sooner than I thought it would be!

If you're doing a vintage look and have a little extra dough, you can have the final paint coat applied in a hand-brushed finished. While this unfortunately doesn't magnetically repel dirt, it does a great job of disguising subsequent touch-ups.

We have Ikea white cabs in a slab front, so they hide nothing. They clean in a jiffy and our 2 heavy handed kids have not left any marks that did not wipe up easily. I am glad I can easily see what needs a good wipe and so I do so and move on. My fridge/freezer set make a big expanse of white, and that wipes down easily too. It takes less than 10 seconds to clean off handprints or smudges. I would not want anything that did not show dirt/germs in my kitchen. I like them to be really clean as opposed to looking clean.

If we had a stained or painted finish, all the cleaning off the high traffic areas might take a toll over time.

I think having white appliances work for your design is something you have to really embrace. The look you are pursuing certainly is the right direction. I had white cabinets and I would never want a single register or painted finish in any colour for lowers. I don't generally prepare food on veetical surfaces so I'm not so worried about a little unseen dirt on them. I am a messy cook so I can live without constantly wiping drips off of white cabinets and it always seemed as I cleaned up one errant drip 6 more would appear (curses!). Or it always when you have someone over you notice something you failed to see when you were cleaning (joy!)

I have friends with kids and white cabinetry - cabinetry is holding up great but they cook a lot and with two kids under 8 and it isn't kitchen that conceals their lack of fastidiousness. I think wood might conceal more for them. Meals are always delicious at their house so I'm not so worried about how clean they keep their cabinets.

Thanks for everyone's experiences, tips and links. I'm not going to cross them off my list just yet. I'm also considering doing the upper white cabs/lower wood cabs look. That would solve my concerns, just not sure if I could pull it off. Lots to think about...

I had dark cabinet and painted them white about 6 months ago. I've got 3 kids (6,5, & 3), and so far they've cleaned very easily. I know this has been said before, but with the darker wood, I wouldn't realize if something spilled on them and they were dirtier than they looked. Now I can just wipe up whatever with a towel, and while I'm far from pristine, they are cleaner than before now that I can better see if there's peanut butter smeared on them or whatever they can think of to mess them up with.