I would guess it's the dreaded Brown Rot. Once that starts it moves rather quickly. I had it a few years ago and some of the experts here on GW pointed me to a product called Monterey Fungi Fighter. I was unable to locate that locally (in a very short time that I had to get it applied) so I found a product from Bonide called Infuse that had the same active ingredient. It worked just like they said it would! I want to say it was Harvestman or Fruitnut who had guided me on this one, but they had said you can even use it in a rescue operation. In other words, if you have spotted early signs of Brown Rot you can spray with MFF (or in my case Infuse) and it'll stop the BR and you'll have saved some of the crop anyway. It worked for me. Going forward from that experience, I was much more diligent in making sure I collected and discarded any of the "Mummies" (the shriveled up fruit with the nasty moldy looking spore things, etc) as well a keeping things really clean under the tree. And then being diligent in a spray schedule with regard to applying a Fungicide. Now when I harvest my cherries, one of the last things I do after picking for the day is to go around the underneath of the tree and pick up all the drops or bird pecked ones that I discard so that there's nothing under my tree except for grass. Even if I'm dog tired after a day of harvesting I find the energy to get the drops off the ground and thrown away. I think it really helps. Others may have a different take on your cherry problem, but if it is BR the products noted and keeping a clean area may help out going forward. This post was edited by iowajer on Mon, May 26, 14 at 9:08

WE painted our cherry veneer 20 year old cabinets in our old house. We also replaced appliances, counter, backsplash, fixtures and found the old floor. I think you are on the right track removing the overhang, but also removing the soffit will make a huge differnce. Do it if there is nothing in it that is too difficult to relocate. If you do not replace doors, definitely fill in the groove and sand flat. You also be able to add glass to a few uppers to really make an impact. The fun thing about painting old cabinets is that you are not destroying anything and making an improvement. You could try different colors. We pained ours about every 3 years, first white, blue, then yellow. I wanted to try gray but we sold the house. We also cut out some of the uppers for glass, but ended up cheaping out and using wire. We also used Soapstone remnants, since we did not want to tear out anything too great because we wanted to eventually replace cabinets (moved first). We were able to them for $2500. Before: First remodel in progress (no finished photos): Yellow:

I just found this post, and hope it's not too late to leave a comment and get an answer to a question. First, I adore your wonderful kitchen...it's truly a "heart of the home" kind of room. The warm wood countertops are really beautiful, and something I will consider when we re-do ours. Right now, we are looking for a refrigerator that will blend with our Wedgewood 40" stove, and are considering the Fisher Paykel. Since you have one, can you tell me if you like it. We are looking at the model that has the pull out freezer, rather than the swing door, and I think its slightly larger, but basically the same in other respects. We have a four bedroom house, over 2300 square ft., but the kitchen is a galley, about 20 ft long, with 62" of floor space between each side. We have a 36" French door refrigerator right now, but I would like to replace it with one that is 33" so I can gain a couple of inches to the right, where we have only about 12 inches of counter between the fridge and the sink. The alternative to what we have would be either the Fisher Paykel, which is narrower and almost counter depth, or another brand, like Maytag, etc., that is 33" but also 33" in depth....the reason to go to that one is the added interior space. Is the 17.5 cu. ft. in the Fisher Paykel enough? There are only 3 of us at home, but some of my friends feel that it's too small for the size of house we have. Are you happy with the size...does it hold enough...or would you go larger if you were to do it again? Thanks for any opinion or advice...we need to buy something within the next two weeks!

Natural cherry darkens. I posted a few days ago showing the color difference between brand new cherry in a sample door for our entertainment system and our 5 year old kitchen cabinet cherry. Most of the darkening happens pretty quickly - in the first couple of months. I don't know how much UV blocking in a finish will slow that, especially since UV blocking % can vary a lot. The dyes in a stain might fade. The Kraftmaid page you linked says that their UV protection helps prevent that. I expect that if the stain was fading noticeably in a common brand like Kraftmaid, we would have seen someone on Gardenweb complaining about it so their stain selection and UV protection is probably preventing that. In past discussions some have said that they don't see any change in their dark stained cherry cabinets. The stain is going to hide the cherry darkening to some extent because it is already making the cabinets darker. If the change is subtle, one might have to compare a newly made door to an old one side-by-side to judge the change, not memories of how you think it looked when the lighting might have been different.