I would not paint cherry cabinets. Unless you have a professional do it, they will ruin the cabinets.

Instead, paint the walls a light color and add a light colored backsplash. Then add better lighting in the room. One ceiling fan and one light over the window is not enough lighting in there.

Also add under counter lighting. Once you do that, the room will not be dark.

I agree with cpartist. What kind of lighting fixtures do you have in the kitchen?

you need a lighting plan. the support people at a good lighting store will look at your cabinet layout on graph paper and diagram up the proper kitchen lighting scheme. Get that fixed....your other elements will hold up with this improvement.

Lighting will make a huge difference! Try before painting those beautiful wood cabinets - you will be glad you did!

You have no light. That's why you're missing the beauty of your cabinets. Costco has 4 packs of 13w dimmable LED standard 100w replacement bulbs in warm. But they are brighter than 100w incandescent by far. Two recessed 6" cans would light up your area for ambient needs. You still need task lighting over the work zones at your counters, the sink and the range. You should locate these recessed lights slightly in front of where you stand so you don't shade what you're working on. With the right lighting you'll love the kitchen you have and as a bonus working in it will be many times easier and more enjoyable. Pendants are more for looks than function in most cases. But to do something today replace all the bulbs in your existing lights with 13w LEDs from Costco or HD.

I'm not shy about painting stuff, but I also strongly recommend you start with the recommendations here. They're less intense, less permanent, and will contribute to the end result even if you DO decide to paint.

It's probably not what you want to hear, but the advice is sound. Try the little stuff before that step. You'll find it easier to marry the rooms, too.

This is my first time posting and I realize after reading these helpful comments that I didn’t word my post quite right and the fact that I have already hired a professional painter. At this point I am finalizing paint colors and was looking for comments on white linen in a north facing room. I have no natural light during the day. Unless I have the lights on (which I feel provide great lighting - I do have under counter lighting) the room feels like a dark cave to me. I have 28 cabinets on both sides of a small kitchen. I do love the link provided for the cherry kitchen makeover. My cabs are 30+ years old and would need to be resurfaced. I feel i have gone too far down this path to change my mind but wish i had seen the face lift post sooner

It's never too late not to have a face lift. Oh, no, you didn't mean that, did you?
LOL. Just kidding.
It's what you want and you're having it professionally done? Your success rate just jumped a million percent.

So, that said, I'd love to see pics. I just stripped some 30 year old (1995, actually) cherry cabinets and (shhhh) am considering repainting them. There. I said it out loud. They stripped completely differently from each other and although I am one eclectic chick, it bugs me.

Just be sure that you have hired a cabinet painter and not your standard handyman type. Painting cabinets is 90% prep, and if all of that cleaning and sanding, and priming, and sanding, isn’t done, then you are not getting a quality job that will last.

Be sure that he sprays the conversion varnish off site, in a clean room, for the doors. The boxes have to be sprayed in the house of course, but the taping up the ducts and rest of the house may actually take longer than spraying!

Replacing the hinges is a good idea at this point, but will be an upgrade. Discuss with your cabinet professional about re-boring for hinges. If the drawers are the good quality dovetail, the glides may be able to be replaced as well.

I wouldn’t spend the 9K on professionally painting those. They are still classic. I’d spend that on LIGHTING.

If the painter hasn't started the job yet, you can cancel the job; you may be out a bit of deposit money (if you even gave him a deposit), but so what. Agree with others - don't paint those cabinets!

What came to mind when I first looked at the photos was "Nice cabs, be a dang

I wouldn't paint them either, but just wanted to mention about PP's suggestion of Linen White. From that post, I KNOW for sure now paint color suggestions are almost useless: I love BM Linen White, have it in many rooms in my house because I love yellow! I.e., it looks very yellow in many different areas of my house. Only where I have very 'cold white' lighting is it very light yellow. I even changed the light bulbs to colder/whiter in both a hallway and small 1/2 bath because it was too yellow even for me. Still looks light yellow in those areas.

Choosing colors - I think especially a white - is very difficult. You have to paint a large part of the room and consider it in different lighting (morning, noon, night). (Another example: I chose BM Classic Gray for my kitchen/dining. It was perfectly light gray on the big sample I did on the wall. After $$$$ paid to a pro painter, turned on the lights the first night and its beige. Not even greige. Just beige. Even with cold/white bulbs its still beige in most of both rooms no matter the lighting/time of day.)

(I'm not sure where the $9,000 quote above for the painting came from, but if that's what you are paying for painting cabinets, I'd just wait and rip them out, redo backsplash, flooring, new IKEA cabinets if these aren't sound or you don't like the layout. If you are handy then $9k would go a long way towards a big facelift.)

"...north facing room. I have no natural light during the day."

Have you considered increasing the size of the window over your sink? It looks like you could revamp the cabinet arrangement on each side of the window to free up wall space to do this. You would lose some cabinet storage but with 28 cabinets, that might not be a problem for you.

Enlarging the window and increasing wall space on each side of the window will go a long way, IMO, towards making your kitchen seem brighter and more open.

One way to arrange the cabinets to do this (definitely not to scale):

If you can't add windows, removing a couple cabinets and increasing the wall space on each side of the window - perhaps tiling the entire wall, too - will help allow what little natural light you get to enter the kitchen.

Not saying you shouldn't paint (but if you do, definitely heed The Cook's Kitchen's advice) but there are other options to consider as well. Unless the painter has bought supplies and has begun the prep work, it's not too late to give your facelift a second (third, fourth, fifth, etc) thought.

PS If you're on the west coast, Idaho, Montana or Alaska, check out Devine Whip at Rodda Paint stores (Devine paint is expensive but Rodda can color match Whip for you). We used that color, mixed by Rodda, for all our trim work and for the DR hutch. It's a beautiful white, creamy without any yellow to it.

It works well with both warm and cool colors. Also blends well with white outlets and light switches.

Average would be 7-9K. If you aren’t paying close to 9K then you have a house painter slapping on house paint, not a cabinet coatings specialist that uses conversion varnish over a properly prepped surface.

This is what you can expect for that low price and quality level, and it’s a crime to do that to those cabinets.

Cheap cabinet paint job · More Info

Cheap cabinet paint job · More Info

Cheap cabinet paint job · More Info

Skyygazzer, I have some photos that may help you.

I have an East-facing kitchen and dining area, and the BM Linen white they put on all the walls before we moved in were definitely yellow in this light.

Backstory:

When we moved into our new home four years ago, I wasn't ready to renovate the kitchen — there were too many other expensive projects going on in the rest of the house PLUS I wasn't quite sure yet if I wanted to keep the original galley footprint or take down a wall for an open floor plan. Anyhow, to give the cabinets a temporary facelift, I painted them in two shades of white. The base cabinets are Benjamin Moore Ivory White and the uppers are a custom blend to match Kraftmaid "Canvas" white — to blend with the new glass-front upper-uppers that I installed.

I find BM Ivory White in east-facing light to be a very pure white. And if you're looking for creamy, the Canvas match in this light registers as very rich, without being yellow.

The below photo is our dining room, which was painted Benjamin Moore Linen White just before we moved in and repainted all the walls gray.

That's a good point not touched upon. If you've been reading, you see how many times someone is told to check the paint out on big samples in their own lighting.

I wanted a sagey gray/green color for cabinets I was painting. Painted 3 different times with 3 different, perfect colors. But when natural light came in (oddly enough, not indirect light, just through the windows) I discovered the paint kept looking turquoise. Certainly not what I wanted at all. Turned out there was an energy efficient coating on the windows that had a blue tint. And I painted my cabinets THREE times. Even with samples, but I didn't get the lighting part.

I ended up going with a gorgeous, Sag Harbor Gray, which was actually very ivory. Coupling that with the blue window tint, it was perfect, perfect PERFECT.

Then, I replaced my slider and window with new-to-me (CL) casement windows and the whole thing changed. Good thing I still love the ivory color!

If you're hell bent on painting, don't do it until you get your lighting finalized and you can check your paint in all the different times of the day and night.

And do make certain you've got a cabinet painter if you're not doing it yourself. Anyone can paint cabinets. Doing it once and doing it right is a different story.

As a kitchen designer, I found most kitchens were severely underlit. Lighting is usually something to consider first. Think about all of the important tasks you accomplish in the kitchen. The lighting should be bright enough to see small details. Consider quality under cabinetry lighting and a significant amount of overhead lighting.

Countertops are easy and run a very clear 80/sq ft. Not a ton of risk. backsplash is a little tougher. Change those before painting your cabinets. Try changing your lights to a super bright LED with a different color rating. You can try 3K or 5K just to see the difference.

You can also buy aftermarket cabinet doors so your painter only has to paint the outside of your boxes. They run about 150/door for a basic shaker style painted door.

A lot of the darkness comes from the density of dark in the counters and wallpaper. Change that to a white and it will transform your kitchen. Changing appliances to stainless will help a lot too.

I do look forward to your after pics, no matter what they are. I like your kitchen.

For painting cabinets a cream color, I would be looking at BM Navajo White (evidently its different than SW Navajo White) based on the photos of the kitchen at this blog: Jenny Steffens’ kitchen. I came across it this weekend, and it’s one of the prettiest cream kitchens I’ve seen in a while. I also agree that doing more windows on the sink wall would be wonderful for opening up and brightening your kitchen.

My parents put nearly identical cherry cabinets in a very similar configuration in their new build back in 1989. I remember Dad saying he was torn at the time whether to do natural cherry or dark cherry. They decided to do the dark cherry, and he later regretted how dark the cabinets made the space feel, even though they were quite pretty. I understand your dilemma.

fyi..I Had a quote for a professional cabinet refinisher to come in and paint my cherry cabinets...6K

I have decided to use SW Dover White for my cabinets and SW Rainwashed for my kitchen and dining room. I have a chair rail in our small open dining room and I am leaning toward painting top and bottom the same. Next color up much too dark and my room is north facing. Or Rainwashed on bottom and a very light version of it on top. Then on to backsplash!

I am facing the same dilemma right now. I have a north facing kitchen which is a middle room so it has one window above the sink. Right now the cabinets are apinted a soft butter yellow. I have Verde Peacock granite and shades of soft rust wallpaper and Italian hand colored ceramic floor tiles in rust, ochres, and grieges.. Time for a change. The granite and floor are staying but the wallpaper and cabinet color are being changed. Almost every Ben Moore white looks gray or pinkish in this room. Even those recommended by internet designers for north facing rooms. My goal is a nice creamy white. So far linen white is the best that I have found. Colors like granite beige look stunning in my dining room, nice warm "griege" but look like a cold gray in the kitchen. North rooms are so tough!! Good luck with your decoratin and your color selections.

Laughablemoments- Thanks for the ink to the 'Navajo White' kitchen. I had completely forgotten this color which might be exactly what I'm looking for.

Sharon

Again, to echo all that was said above, be sure to paint a wide swath of wall in both your kitchen and dining room to be sure you like the wall colors in different light. We have SW Rainwashed in our master bedroom and it changes from an almost aqua-ish to a very greenish depending on the light.

Choosing a white in a north facing room with just one window over the sink has been a journey! Plus i am trying to match a very yellow white in my connected rooms. I did love BM linen white but the slight yellow bothered me. The Dover White is lighter and is staying white in all lighting day and night. Its lighter than the trim in my living room but hoping it wont be too noticeable. I love Rainwashed but I have painted 2 poster boards and they are changing color constantly. Seeing blue in kitchen and green in living room. Still going with it. Just need to decide on lighter shade for top of chair rail in dining room

I don't think you should be constrained by the color in a room you can easily change. Cabinets won't be something so easy.

Following! I have almost the identical cherry cabinets and am 99% sure I'm going to paint them white. I'd love to see how these turned out for you!

My plan is to add tall crown to the tops and then paint. Replace flooring and counters. I can't afford to replace my cabinets or have them professionally painted at this time.

Let us know how it turns out!