Lafonda-the red is one of my favorite choices I made. Makes me happy, even when I'm doing laundry! It is BM Raspberry Truffle and the ceiling is SW Believeable Buff (looks similar to SW Blonde with my lighting). The raspberry truffle is great, not too blue, not too pink, it's seems to be a very true shade of red. Thank you for the wonderful compliments! You're very sweet!

CLC, I did mine about a year ago with instructions I found on DIY (I think). First I took off the doors and the hardware and washed everything down with TPC (I think that's the right name). You can find it in the paint dept. in a little carton like milk comes in. You mix it up in warm water. It's supposed to clean off all dirt, grease, etc. It did a great job! Next I sanded all surfaces with a fine sandpaper then cleaned with a tack cloth. Then I painted one coat, sanded and tack clothed (?) when it was dry, and painted a second coat. I used interior enamel in a gloss finish. So far they still look pretty good, but I suspect I should have used some kind of oil-based paint since I'm pretty sure the original finish was oil-based. And I should have used high gloss because I wanted much more shine than I got. We didn't take the cabinets out. I painted the doors and drawers out in the garage, but painted the bases where they were. It was a really big job! I took 5 days off work and it ended up taking all that time and several more weekends to get it all done. And most of the doors don't want to close all the way after having the hardware removed and reinstalled. But they sure look better than the old, tired, out of date pickled oak finish! Donna

@Beth, first thanks for all your tips and ideas on the hardware. Good idea to mark them out and good to know that 4" is the min (they sell 3 and 3.5, which are cheaper, so I wondered if that would work. thanks) I know; You had a lot of good ideas on painting. Thank you. I am still waffling on what to do. I guess my concerns w/ the painted floors are the effort to do it and the maintenance (I have wear patterns on my front porch and the kitchen gets more traffic). Plus I want to limit my exposure to chemicals. FWIW, this morning I emailed my house painter to check his schedule if I choose to have him repaint the cabs. (he's a much better painter than I am) Painting would allow me to fix the placement of the holes on some of the cabs (currently, most of the cabs do not have holes). I could also put a cab to the left of the stove. And I made an appt next week with the interior designer who was going to help me pick finish materials etc with the big remodel....to get his opinion of a scaled-down remodel. i.e. how to make this house a better version of what it is without spending a ton of money since I may move in a few years....thanks for all your help! I don't want this to be all about $$$, but everything is so $$$ and I hate the idea of investing a lot of excessive $ that I won't get when I sell. (when my former realtor came over this summer, she kept saying "do what *you* want; do what makes you happy; you don't need to do anything to fix this house to sell it" etc). So I guess my dilemma: what can make it more live-able for me for the next few years. (but possibly longer? who knows?)

I just supervised the sale of my mother-in-law's house and faced these same issues. Here are some thoughts: #1 - Realtors will want you to put money into expensive upgrades. Beware, because their tastes aren't your tastes and certainly won't be precisely your buyer's tastes. It's not their investment that will suffer a loss of return at sale -- it's yours. #2 - Some upgrades can recoup more than their outlay in the final sale. Replacing the "nasty" living area carpet and paint on worn wall areas are two upgrades that might really increase the sale price. If you paint yourself and get inexpensive carpet installed, try to keep it under maybe $4K in cost. Carpet is the cheapest flooring available. I disagree about ripping up carpet and leaving wood flooring unless floor is pristine because refinishing the wood flooring is time-intensive and expensive. #3 - You will never recover your costs in a sale from upgraded cabinets and granite countertops. With our culture of so many TV shows depicting total renovations to "flip" a house and profit an extra $20K, we have come to think this is necessary. It is not. A lot of those house flip shows make the majority of their money off TV advertising that runs during the airing, not on profit made from the house. If the Formica absolutely must go, look at the new Wilsonart 21 Soft Silk laminate finishes. They look like marble and have an amazing touch and feel. That's maybe $800 right there installed vs. $6000 for granite depending on your surface area, and some people won't even notice the difference. #4 - Oak cabinetry is coming back into vogue. Don't underestimate the power of custom cabinetry. That's $20K right there at least, and someone may want to paint it or leave it as is and love it. #5 - Really want to save a ton of money? Try to sell the house on the private market yourself instead of going through a realtor. You can profit tens of thousands extra. You'll have to show the house yourself, but you will be more interested in the sale than any realtor and will treat interested people well. Put a sign in your yard with an info sheet. Pay a reputable company to list on the MLS for you -- you shouldn't be paying more than $300 for any services they offer to list on the MLS, and do your research as to which companies are reputable or go through a local realtor who can list on the MLS for you for a few hundred (they pay a lot in fees yearly for unlimited access, so it is worth it to pay them to list for you). Then maybe get a disposable TracFone or pay-per-minute phone with a special phone number to take calls. Investors will call you indefinitely, so you'll want a phone number that's dedicated to the sale of your house. You can do it, and best wishes!