The white walls in your kitchen are too stark.

Our next door neighbor has the same exact colored kitchen cabinets and just did their countertops, backsplash, and new appliances. Their floors are wood (darker than the cabinets), and countertops are granite (not sure what the color is called but it's white with black veining), and did a matching white/gray tiles for backsplash. They love it!

It looks like you have knotty alder for cabinets. These are natural coloured (light gold in tone) wood cabinets. That means you want to work with things that work with natural wood tones. The other thing you need to worry about is how BUSY the wood is. That means you want to work with counters/floors that are CALM (ie. not a lot of movement; not a lot of UMPH in the visual). Only ONE THING in the kitchen should have that "kick in the gut" impact (visually). The high-impact item you already HAVE = cabinets. Good. Now that has been established we can MOVE ON to the next thing: colours.

Light gold wood likes to work with 3-4 "colours". The #1 = White (white counter tops...just like you have there...you would be replacing "like for like"). With a white counter you would look at white or very light flooring (just as you have already = another like for like replacement = not much of change for all that money spent).

The #2 = Black. A black counter top (like Uba Tuba = black with hints of green in it) can be used to really set off the light tones in the wood. The easy-peasy floor choice would be (you guessed it) black. Ouch. This can be stunning - but VERY hard to live with. I do NOT think this is an option for you.

The #3/#4 options would be BLUE or green (personal choice for colours makes blue more viable than green and vice verse). I personally LOVE blue with light gold wood. I love a blue slate (counter tops AND flooring) with a country-style wood kitchen. This is a great way to get a modern country feel (sigh...yes your kitchen is country in style...there is no way to change that without changing the cabinets).

The BEAUTY in using blue slate is it works NICELY with gray. Gray and blue are often compatible (assuming the gray you choose has blue undertones).

If you work with green, you will need to rethink the carpet and the paint.

See how much fun this is? This is why Sophie suggests a designer. Personally I would go with blue slate. It has LOW visual impact. It is simple and timeless and it will EASILY support a modern country kitchen....it also works very very well with gray (again, watch your undertones in the paint/carpet...do NOT work with beigy tones...it will get ugly in a hurry).

Thank you all SO so much for your comments!!! They were all very thorough and thought out and helpful. We are taking each one into serious consideration. My husband and I are having to make these decisions relatively quickly and we weren't sure what to do. The house is also in a different state, so making house decisions has been quite tricky and we have been relying on family that lives there to make a lot of decisions on our behalf. From all of your comments it seems to be that there are some decent options to choose from. .. Although not as many as we would have hoped for.

Is it worth it to just make our lives easier and paint these? If so, is it difficult to make knotty wood look good with the natural holes it has.

Thank you so so much again!!! Your help is overly appreciated!

Knotty Alder (or any "character grade" wood) is SUPER TOUGH to paint...and look GOOD. The problem is the knot holes. They need to be sanded, patched, sanded, patched, etc until PERFECTLY SMOOTH. To do THAT...you need to STRIP the finish off the wood. And that is A LOT OF WORK!

Now that you have spent DOZENS OF HOURS getting these ready, you are ready for the next step (imaging a week of stripping, sanding, patching, sanding, patching, etc...40 hour work week x 2 people....you get the idea). Priming the cabinets. Assume you will need two coats of primer. By this time (and after all the sanding and all the patching) you will have ZERO grain left.

Allow each coat of primer to cure (24-48 hours/coat). Then you can look at painting. Again you will want to assume 2 coats. Again allow to cure between coats (24-48 hrs/coat). And when the paint is hard/cured, you can apply polyurethane top coat....or two.

After 3-4 weeks of work, you might believe it easier to re-face these and be done with it. If you are IN THE SAME TOWN this is a possibility. If you are out of state, this is going to be the worst long-distance relationship you will ever have. I don't recommend it.

SJ McCarthy, I must respectfully disagree. I painted a knotty ceiling in my house in Michigan. Couple coats of Kilz, paintable caulk in the knot holes, paint, and it looked fine. The last thing you want to do is remove finishes so the knots can bleed. You bury them.

So You guys are saying I do need to remove the finish or I don't? I got different opinions from SJ McCarthy and Joseph Corlett.

Thank you guys sooo much by the way for your wisdom. I have zero regarding the matter.

Do you think using a Gel stain would be a better way to go about the whole process? (much less labor) producing a fresher, easier color to work with?

Give an obscure area of cabinet an acetone wipe, then try out your gel stain.

What Joseph is pointing out is gel stains are not what they appear to be. And they have a tendency to wear badly. You might get a year or two of "nice" looking cabinets and then they look like crap. If you wish to work with gel stains you might want to go VERY dark. Almost as dark as paint. So dark that people will think you have ebony in the kitchen. The darker the gel stain the more "realistic" it looks. But you have to be prepared to go dark.

I personally wouldn't waste my time/money on them. Either have the cabinets professionally painted or professionally refaced or leave them be and work around them until you can afford a FULL renovation.

Those are your "realistic" options.

I love DIY and paint furniture but if I ever wanted painted wood kitchen cabs I would hire. Have them sent out to paint. The top coat would be catalyzed varnish.