this is my old kitchen. walls are Georgian green (dill pickle is a bit too clean and depending on your light might read too bright. the color expert at the store talked me out of it and I'm glad she did.) counter is black with streaks of gray. (btw: this was all done to sell the house).

another really great green to look at is fernwood green 2145-40. I'm using it in a bedroom in my new condo. also don't forget about the fifth wall-the ceiling.

Here is a link that might be useful:

I am thinking you might want to go crazy with some Talavera tiles. You can go green, red, yellow, mango, cobalt, etc... Maybe just do a focal point somewhere with them and then green field tiles. If you are not thinking that bold, then do some solid colored 4 x 4s and toss a patterned one in here and there.
You want "cheerful", that would do it....

If the Talavera's are not for you.....

you could go a little subdued up top and work some big geometric shapes of color into the floor. Use the Volcanic Ash as the backdrop and then put a square of green with a rectangle of yellow and a red circle on your floor. This way, your upper elements are mellow with the floor adding the zing. Marmoleum makes some very pretty colors (esp the greens) and you could really get creative.
If you did sell later on, someone can switch the floor and paint the walls and your kitchen would have a whole new look....

Or you could do the less wild version and use one of Marmoleum's great borders to make a nice design. The beauty of the M, is it can be anything you want it to be. You are not stuck with tile sizes and patterns if you use the sheet M.
BTW - Silver Shadow seems very blue in natural light, IMHO.

It sounds beautiful to have swaths in shades of green and grey, pops of dark red, and bits of white and black counters. I love it already.

You say you want cheerful. That probably means a few brighter midtones - a piece of apple green wall or a candy red chair maybe. Mixing up the finishes - green cabs here, but grey there - would be cheerful.

How about (with grey floors, black countertops, white appliances) white trim like window and door trim, and then three shades of cabs - a pale grey, a sage green, and an apple green focus, and then on the walls, the same (close)pale grey and sage green, arranged so the grey is with the green cabs and the green is with the grey? That would give very pretty colors, and a cheerful ambiance with soft sophisticated colors.

Will there be curtains? a soft grey and white pattern. Stripes would be fun. Or polka dots are always cheerful.
the ceiling? Hmm. I would paint grey bands that echo the shapes of the room, the island or nooks or whatever.

Have fun!

"Craftsman" says wood, usually oak, for cabinets to most people. If you're not going to do that for at least an island or feature piece, I'm not certain you're really going "Craftsman". Maybe you need to redefine your inspiration terms to be more successful in picking elements that fit what you're trying to achieve. Your description and color palette, and especially the painted cabinets, says more "Modern Cottage" to me than "Craftsman".

One really good way to help you to pick your color schemes is to have an "inspiration piece" that combines the colors you love. Maybe it's a piece of stained glass that you're going to hang in a window, or a piece of William Morris fabric to cover that special chair, or a cushion you picked up at the flea market a million years ago. But, you've seen the color scheme you're describing somewhere on something. Use it to help you narrow down your choices.

Thanks! I should probably redefine the style as modern bungalow, since live_wire_oak is right that a true Craftsman would be wood---however, while the house we have is a style that's commonly called Craftsman around here, it's officially a California bungalow, which is a little different...stucco outside instead of wood, painted woodwork (originally our DR/LR were unpainted, but the kitchen woodwork and cabinetry has been painted from the very beginning, according to the blueprints). So that's the aesthetic we're trying to fit.

There will be no window treatment---the main window looks out onto some fruit trees so we've enjoyed having it without curtains/blinds---but possibly other opportunities to add some additional colors here and there.

Here are my kitchen art pieces---although these don't have the green in them, for the most part, so I was hoping they would be accents rather than primary colors. (We're also hitting problems having enough empty wall space left to hang them to begin with, but that's another story!)

...and as far as kitchens, here are a few:

From JAS Design-Build by way of Sunset (but this green is too aqua/seafoam for us---just like the color bravery):

From a SF apartment on Flickr, though this one is too white for my husband--but this is what our upper cabinets will look like, roughly:

From Southern Living:

None of these, of course, has the gray cabinets, and that's where I keep getting stuck. I love the white and green contrast, but my husband does not want white cabinets. We compromised on keeping some of them white and using color on the others, but when I use the little BM color viewer (which fortunately has a kitchen photo that works quite nicely for modeling color)---gray cabinets seem to mute the green walls, and that's with a wood floor in their little model....worried that a gray floor will muddy the colors even more.

I like the idea of mixing the shades of green, though, and had actually tried that with a couple of greens from the same swatch, using a light one on the cabinets and a darker on the walls---is that going to be green overkill, though? The area where the colored cabinets will be won't have any uppers, so on wall #1, most of the "overhead" space is consumed by two big windows that will have white trim around them, and on wall #2, there will be open shelves that can be any color and a stainless steel range hood. The rest of the space will be wall color.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you are covering a large area, even a very muted color can look more colorful. Typically, I've found that colors can look very white or very gray on a chip, but once on the wall their color really shows. So pay attention to what the darker shades on the same chip look like--that color will come out more strongly on a large area.

I think that grey cabinets and green walls would look great. I painted my last bedroom Behr Turtle Dove, which is a light greenish gray (Behr's visualization tool didn't do it justice; it didn't look as grey on my computer as it did in real life). The darker colors on the same chip are still muted, but definitely green. I would look at choosing a strip of muted greens, then pick a light one for the cabinets and a darker one for the walls.

Two of your inspiration photos (Sunset and Southern Living) are also in my folder. You have excellent taste! :-)

I love Craftsman too, and the other day a friend sent me the link below--it's some remodeler's award-winning Craftsman style kitchen remodel, and it has some lovely green subway tile: http://masterremodelersinc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=84&Itemid=89

If you're going with white appliances, though, and definitely want to paint the cabinets, I would really really really really REALLY (and did I say really?) not recommend painting the cabinets white. Not that there's anything wrong with an all-white kitchen, but it's very NON-Craftsman looking.

As an alternative to white cabinets, here's a link with a picture (scroll down, it's #10 at the bottom left) of a light sage green vintage kitchen with a white range and grey counters. Is that like what you have in mind? I think it's very pretty.

Here is a link that might be useful: Vintage green/white/grey kitchen - see picture 10

What about BM Paris Rain for the cabinets and BM Misted Fern for the walls?

I'm having trouble figuring out a good color scheme for our kitchen, which in turn is slowing down silly things like ordering our linoleum and getting the counter picked out.

Try reversing the process ... go find some flooring or a counter top - or even some art work or a fabric - that "speaks to you" and tells you that it belongs in your house.

Take your color scheme from that.

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Very few people can think in abstract colors, but they can say "ooooh!!! WANT!" when confronted with the perfect object.