1. ABSOLUTELY. The more specific you are about what "moderate" means to you, the more meaningful GW responses will be, but almost any kitchen look can be achieved within budgetary constraints with thoughtful planning and elbow grease. Whether your "moderate" will allow for custom cabinets, semi custom, or RTA, they all come in white, and don't have to keep company with a Viking range and a SubZero fridge.

2. ABSOLUTELY. It's all about pleasing your eye. I think the more refined the colorings and glass texture, the prettier they will be with white. The Tiffany-style chandelier below could be pretty in a white kitchen, especially if there are other small bursts of similar colors (in the backsplash, perhaps) and a few vintage touches throughout.

Bad news for the hubby methinks...

Here is a link that might be useful: Lighting

Of course you can do a white kitchen on a moderate budget! I've just finished two projects for customers where the cabinet total was under 8K for each. One Kraftmaid with less bells and whistles and one in Shenendoah chock full of just about everything but stacked cabinets. One chose to keep the old appliances to splurge on a granite they really loved, while another chose a basic but nice granite and all new appliances. Both kept their nice tile flooring. Overall, the total budget for each was right at 15K. If you had to add flooring and additional electrical etc, your budget would probably be around 20K.

It can certainly be done if you have a good eye (or some help of a KD) and hunt for bargains!

You can go to ikeas web site and play with their kitchen designer. Then you can get an idea of the costs. Ikea has many cabinet colors and styles and if you want to kick it up further you can get real wood doors from semihomemade.com. You don't have to purchase the door fronts from them. If you have a larger kitchen you can mix white with wood. I just put in an ikea kitchen in white abstrack, I love it! Not finished yet but loving it!

I used to feel the same way as your dh about white cabinets. My experience with them was the "landlord put the cheapest thing that could technically be called cabinets" in, and so that left a really bad taste in my mouth for them. My dh felt the same way. However as I got more interested in remodeling the kitchen, and saw more pictures, I saw many beautiful high end white kitchens, and I saw plenty of them that were nice but seemed....reasonable, for lack of a better word. Not glorious kitchens decked out with Wolf/SubZero/Bluestar/fill-in-the-high-end-blank, but still very nice.

If you have an Ikea nearby, it might be worth a visit just to look at some of their displays, even if you don't intend to go with Ikea for the cabinets. They have a variety of white door front styles, and at least at my Ikea, the display kitchens range from the "apartment grade" look to a fairly high-end look(perhaps minus the brand name appliances).

Dh and I are remodeling now (very s.....l...o...w...l...y) and will end up with white uppers for certain, and either white or brown/black lowers. I originally wanted all black, he wanted all honey oak (WHY???), and white was our happy compromise. My finished product will not be super high end, but I am confident that it will be nice, and it certainly will be functional.

To give you an idea of what can be achieved with an Ikea kitchen: check out this thread: Finished Kitchen: Circa 1840 Working Farmhouse, IKEA Budget Reno.

My own Ikea kitchen, very much more modest that Brickmanhouse's:

Here is a link that might be useful: Finished Kitchen: Circa 1840 Working Farmhouse, IKEA Budget Reno

Yes Brickmanhouse did an excellent job. Though we're doing our cabinets in black, I bookmarked it for myself to show me how creative you can get using IKEA cabinets.

Here is a link that might be useful: Brickmanhouse's White's kitchen

We saved on our 'white' kitchen (which is probably turning into a brown kitchen but that's another story) by using Conestoga RTA cabinets (Highly recommend Brian Long/Cabinet Joint). DH and I assembled them together and then had our builder install most of them for us. I think we spent ~22K for perimeter cabinets, island cabinets, desk area, 2 floor to ceiling bookshelves, and then cabinets in two other rooms (pantry and mud room). This included custom cabinet dimensions and drawer sizes and heights, as welll as 18" uppers. Oh yes, trimwork too and shipping costs. (I'd buy unfinished wood and paint it myself next time for the trim work).

It's a big space and I estimate we saved between $8000 - $15000 (comparing other quotes). Of course, money saved on the cabinets ends up being spent elsewhere.... And as always, when you DIY, everything takes so much longer.

Regarding white kitchen - beware having too much white. You may find it 'blah'. We are going with a dark brown backsplash to ground the room. Our floors are light oak. This is quite different from the white/grey kitchen I was originally planning.

Current state: note how the cabinets blend in with the ceiling and light countertop.

Closeup of cabinets - please ignore bottom trim piece which needs to be re-done. Eventually, we'll replace the trash pedal with something white.

Backsplash idea (this is photoshopped). The darker colors work so much better than the lighter ones, in this space.

Oh I see I never finished my point:) We were able to include certain higher end appliances and fixtures by going with the cabinets we selected. (Win/Win). It should be all about a functional layout and the tools you end up with, IMO. Good luck!

Your husband is not alone. Many people associate white cabinets with either the metal or wood cabinets painted white, at home. It doesn't mean they're 'poor' but I would say it was often the basis of a frugal, DIY redesign.

Often, painted cabinets, DIY backsplash tile and a new countertop were the items people could afford. Sometimes a new appliance or two were added, if they needed to be replaced, but often they were done in stages, not all at once. Or so I've read :)

Now, just my two cents...the same thing that has you so determined to have a stained glass fixture (childhood memory) is why your husband doesn't want white cabinets. I think you should really make an effort to take him shopping and look at warm white (not cold) and wood cabinets (light and dark) and see if something really appeals to both of you. Maybe even mix the two?

Best of luck with your new kitchen!

I have a modest kitchen with white cabinets and there is nothing cheap or frugal looking about my space. I'm like you, I like the calm, inviting look of white cabinets. I had repainted my old kitchen cabinets white and loved it. We were going to go with wood stained cabinets this time because we were "supposed" to according to what everyone else is doing but at the last minute we changed our minds and am so glad I did.

We do have natural maple cabinets in the bathrooms which is great in small doses but for me I couldn't do an entire kitchen of it. (Just my personal choices and preference)

Now as for the stained glass light - I thing it would really look great against white cabinets and if you could choose a colour from it and bring it down into the room it would tie in the whole look. I think many people connect the stained glass lamps/lights with the craftsman style and that is usually wood kitchens. No reason that you can't put your own spin and style on it.

I did my white kitchen on a shoestring budget, but it's still a world above what it used to be! I think GWers have created nice white kitchens at all price points, though. Have you showed him your inspiration pics? Perhaps if he sees enough nice white kitchens he'll lose some of his cheap association with white.

You can remind him that wood kitchens can look cheap, too (or 'builder basic' may be a better way for me to phrase it, considering the following kitchen likely has better quality cabinets than mine)...case in point:

Lavender Lass has a point, though. Have you considered doing two-toned cabinets? White uppers may give you the bright, inviting kitchen you desire, while leaving the lowers stained or painted darker could help keep the kitchen from giving hubby flashbacks. I bet your stained glass fixture would look great with two-toned cabinets, too. I love these:

When I went to price cabinets, I was blown away...white cabinets were a 22 percent UPGRADE in price!....far more than cherry....and I too thought it was what people did when their cabinets were too shabby to be saved. Love white cabinets!

how dare you imply my white kitchen was moderate. I do things in one of two ways, inexpensively or expensively. Not moderately.

Thanks for the advice, folks.

I'm not surprised to hear that white cabinets were a mark-up item. I like the cabinets in petra66's picture - simple. (I also love that colored tile stripe. Very cool.) The magazine white cabinets, though, seem to have furniture-legs, stove alcoves, etc. -- and those are a bit much for my taste as well as expensive.

LOVE that stained glass light fixture (most stained glass is Craftsman style, and while I like it in other people's homes, it's not "me"). I want something along those lines, but it must include a touch of red. Most of my accessories (in and out of the kitchen) are red. I considered RED cabinets, but I feared it'd be a bit much -- even for me -- in a hurry.

I am totally lost on backsplashes, but I do like the idea of tying the colors into the light fixtures . . . but I think it'd have to be done with a light touch. If we go with the white cabinets, too much color in the backsplash wouldn't seem quite right.

No, I don't go for mixed cabinet colors. It'll either be white or wood-tones. Again, that look is something that I might find lovely in someone else's house but wouldn't choose for myself.

Thanks for your input, folks!