Oh, and in case it wasn't clear from my earlier post, I don't think you should discount soapstone at all--I would use it again in the right setting. I just wouldn't use *our* particular soapstone. We didn't get samples and test, and we should have (it was at the top of our budget so we just went with the cheapest stone they had--mistake!) I remember someone here, Marcolo I think, getting samples a few months after ours went in and commenting that our stone looked like Ray Liotta after the testing. ;) But I do still love it for the reasons we chose it, so I would look for a harder soapstone that had those great qualities with fewer of the downsides. All soapstone will show some wear, but usually it's more like a patina, and many can be oiled or sanded to hide this if you want. I don't think most people have the issue with the edges gouging and breaking down like we do. A few random thoughts, too--our sink cabinet was much the same as yours. In our before pics you can see one door completely missing--it wouldn't close so we finally just took it off! Our sink run had been built in a later remodel (using, we think, parts of the original cabinets) because the original sinks of that era were freestanding behemoths (beautiful, but rarely kept in remodels in the 30s-50s sadly) so it was common for those cabinets to be remodeled even if others were kept. Ours were very poor condition (only mediocre quality to start, and many years old with water leaks and such to boot) and could not be salvaged. They were also three-sided built-in-place (very common in that era) which limited how easily we could reuse or adapt them. And I love love love tile counters, but we got it priced out and it was well above the cost of any stone options to have it done well (critical for it to be level--while we were fine doing our backsplash ourselves, we were not confident in our ability to get a perfectly level surface on the counter) using epoxy grout (which local places said was the solution to icky grout, something we wanted to avoid--dunno what the thinking on this is these days, as this was three years ago). If you have strong DIY tile skills, maybe an option, but otherwise, it's probably not worth the cost. And last (sorry for the length!) two thoughts on drawers: yes, they can add runners if you want (may need to replace the boxes though depending on drawers), but beeswax did wonders for ours! Try that first for sure. We did find that it was less costly to remodel the areas where we did not open walls beyond electrical, so I think if you can divide the kitchen by walls, it would be feasible to keep the Hoosier and drawers but gut the other areas. However, we also had and were keeping plaster walls--drywall is a lot cheaper so then it might make more sense to go down to the studs and just put up new wall. It may also affect code requirements, too. Where we did not open walls, our existing wiring was grandfathered in (except for counters, since cabinets/counters were new). That did save us some money too.

Dh and me did this in our previous home. We had a small kitchen with out dated doors so we measured the openings and ordered doors and drawer fronts through one of the box stores. It was actually more expensive than I thought it would be but it turned out really nice. We didn't even order wood doors, it was a laminate product of some kind and we got white. They looked like wood with a "wood grain" and they were easy for my dh to install. This was about 5 - 7 years ago and it was about $1500. We got lots of positive feedback but it was really a "diy" project, we measured then ordered, picked them up and did the install.

Thanks for the link steff. I will check it out. donaldg -- we aren't planning a major upgrade anytime soon. we have two college educations to pay for in the next few years, so trying not to spend where we don't need to. About 8 years ago we actually replaced the old white laminate countertop with silestone and purchased new appliances. At the time, the cabinets still looked like new. The laminate boxes are are in good shape and don't need to be painted. But the concern is creating a color clash with painted doors. I am concerned about painting the laminate and the issue of durability that steff mentions. In addition, the wall cabs are ceiling height so this will be one heck of a project. I've toyed with painting the doors an entirely different color and leaving the boxes as they are. However, my kitchen is extremely dark with only one small window, so the white color is really key to trying to maintain the little bit of light we have.

I agree with Beth that the painting job on these would not be worth it. I agree with refacing with new doors and drawers. Look at Barker Cabinets for replacement doors. I would order them unfinished so that you're starting from scratch with new paint. Beth is an excellent source of information and can be a great help with advice on how to do this correctly. I'm sure spending a bit of money for new doors and drawers will certainly be a worthwhile investment. If you're considering selling the house in the near future, it's going to be a turn off to most buyers to see mismatched cabinet doors. The little bit of money you spend now will save you someone offering $20k less for your house because all they see is a gut job.