See if you can google celticmoon's kitchen. She used gel stain (if I'm remembering correctly) and gave really detailed instructions on how she did it. Hers turned out beautifully.

Lots of blog posts about how to do this.

If it's maple, I wouldn't do a dark stain. Maple takes dark stains very unevenly.

I agree with practigal. You're going to need handles/knobs anyway, so why not start there and see if that does the trick. I like both stained and painted cabinets, but not a lot of dark of either kind. If you go really dark, do you have abundant natural light?

Although I'm not a big fan of the look of gel stain (after having used it on bathroom cabinets) I'd use that over refinishing and using regular dark stain for the reason cpartist mentioned, you'll have a tough time getting an even staining on that wood. And it would be laborious.

I used a water-based glaze (dry-brushed 2 coats) on my kitchen cabinets and they came out much better than the gel stained bathroom cabinets but I didn't go as dark as you'd like to. It was a better process since everything was water-based (3 coats of polycrylic on top) still took 12 days of a torn apart kitchen but the results were well worth it.

Paint will look nice if you want an all-over color with no tonal variations, it's really up to you what you want them to look like in the end, but plan about 2 weeks of work (and don't skimp on the prep, everything afterwards will rely on it).

looks like a better kitchen for white cabinets..might be easier to paint white...change counters to something very dark...add a medium backsplash with some darker grout lines and dark hardware. The alcove reads dark with shadows and the recess. I'd want some lightness in the kitchen. Show the island and sink area...the whole rest of kitchen...maybe a 2-toned kitchen with some dark in a certain area. Gotta see the whole thing.

I painted our cabinets (which were stained originally) and here are the instructions and photos if you're interested in paint.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2320322/painting-cabinets-with-bm-advance

The thread with gel stain instructions from CelticMoon is referenced/linked in the "Read Me" thread.

Here's the link to the gel-stain thread: How do I Gel Stain my cabinets?

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2767042/how-do-i-gel-stain-my-cabinets

Practigal:

Because it is connected to the rest of the family room which has dark furnitures (and also a red sofa!) I was thinking to eliminate some of the redness that the maple cabinets has so change it to darker. I was also going to add some hardwares sometime later. And though we did the wall colors recently, I am open to changing them again if thats makes the overall look better.

herbflavor:

I will post rest of the pics later tonight...kids just got home from school...kitchen and everything else is such a mess right now !!

Linelle:

yes, a lot of natural light but the rooms are north and east facing so a lot of cool light

ghostlyvisions:

no idea what a waterbassd glaze is...do you have pictures please?

kas4 and Buehl:

Many thanks! I will check them out tonight :)

Kas4 : just checked your bathroom reno...omg! They look absolutely professional!! I also selected bitterweet in BM advance and I already picked up a sample last night! Have some left over Shellac based BIN primar from a past project...I will do some testing tonight!

Buehl : Do you know if celticmoon's kitchen was maple? Cpartist mentioned maple may not take staining evenly. I had previously stained our dining table with miniwax and it wasnot an easy process ..: but I like the look of stained wood.

You know you're going to have to repaint the room because the darker cabinets really won't go with that green paint..

Actually that green will go beautifully with the darker cabinets. My mother, at my suggestion painted her kitchen walls the same green. She had dark wood cabinets and it looked great.

Cpartist is good with colors so please consider her advice....

I agree that green will look perfect with expresso colored cabinets. We are putting in dark cabinets too - Ikea Laxarby black-brown. I think yours would look great stained darker!

I bought the glaze at Lowes (Valspar brand) but I'd imagine you can get it at SW or BM, General Finishes may sell the water based as well, I don't know. It's milky white but dries clear, you mix a small amount of paint into it, the container will give suggested amounts of paint (20 - 50% I think) less to let more wood grain or cabinet color show through, and then 3 or 4 coats of Polycrylic.

That was harder to work with than the glaze, it's thin and wanted to drip, sag and dry faster than I could brush them out. And with a thin glaze coat underneath, sanding between coats was too risky, imo. I wanted mine to keep the stained wood look only more brown (but not nearly as dark as java) and to fix some finish damage, here's a before and after of the sink run (I dislike the counters but haven't convinced hub yet that they need replacing, along with the double bowl sink which I also detest lol):

Kitchen · More Info

Kitchen · More Info