I would leave them. Your kitchen is in great shape. Can you function without all those cabinets. Just to make you feel better, when you visit kitchen websites, a cathedral door is still offered. Yes, they are not in fashion right now, but the over all feel of your kitchen is nice. I don't think anyone would look at it and dwell on the fact that the doors are not current. At some point you may replace them, so I would wait until you can go all out. There are many on GW who have painted, refreshed etc. But, you DH does not want too, and I don't know how easy it would be to match up your wood to replace the door.

Thank you for all the replies. I've read through most but want to go back and reread as they are so interesting. I should have used "sensual" instead of sexy, maybe? How I would describe it as wanting to touch it. I find I like to rub my hand on my cabinets or any nicely finished wood. Certain tiles also make me want to reach out and touch them. I find that what I consider rich/warm kitchens have that touchable quality. While I think white or light/airy look nice, I don't feel the need to touch them. I hope some of you know what I'm taking about and don't think I am nuts, lol. I honestly don't go around rubbing my friends cabinets. If you enjoy walking barefoot on hardwood floors you will understand. Someday we should start a topic on workplace kitchens. Aren't they the worst? Interesting about darker kitchens being photo'd at night.... have to look for that. I guess it matters how you use your kitchen. I imagine when my kids were younger maybe rich, warm, sensual would not be my exact target but not far off. Now we find the kitchen has a warm welcoming appeal that we have many conversations there, like to hang out there, I read books at the island, and yes, it can be romantic place. I was just thinking about the types of restaurants I like. I like the ones that are darker, with textures like brick walls, wood, etc. Some of those elements are in my kitchen. hmmm Sounds like most people balance the light/airy with warmth. I think maybe we did that a little as we chose white diamond granite instead of black (which we really wanted) and added some SS with the hood, sink, and island support. Of course I think SS makes you want to reach out and touch it too. I have seen kitchen where the "light" thing went to far and it was blinding with no warmth.

kimmieb - What an extremely thoughtful, resourceful and inspiring "refresh" - I am sure you will like it more than you would the 100K kitchen (I do :) because you did it yourself, worked with what you had and made it your own. Not to mention that you used an incredibly fabulous and relaxing color in the kitchen. I say... gray-blue, blue-gray, gray-blue, a little green-gray and maybe something slightly purple-blue-gray - that is where my brain lives these days. My old place was more yellow/beige and fresh greens/blue-greens. I had to fight myself to not make our current place blue-gray inside and out but needed other colors - if only to complement/accent more blue-gray :) It is amazing how color preferences can shift. Believe it or not my horizon's actually expended after many hours on the kitchen and home decorating forum. I even painted a bathroom tomato red! I hope your kitchen inspires more beautiful colorful painted kitchens.

"kats meow, I completely missed that bit of info about your husband using the dining room as the office." Well, actually I think you have it. I met today with a designer to discuss all the potential remodeling of the house. We had a lengthy discussion about the kitchen. Of course, we talked about opening the kitchen to the family room entirely or greatly expanding the pass through. The problem (even though all of that seemed awesome) is that it ate up the budget and I still have a master bath that needs to be redone (separate thread on that one). I wanted to preserve as much of the kitchen footprint as I could while improving storage and workspace. Having a more open kitchen was basically more of a want than a need. That is, I don't really need a fully open kitchen although I might like how that looks. So, what was proposed is something that I think I can make work with my budget and will meet my real needs. The first idea is, yes, to move the dining table and chairs to the formal dining room. Yes, DH has his office there. Basically, the suggestion is that we use the family room as an office. Make the formal living room the main living area for guests and use the family room mostly as an office with a sofa in there for talking/TV. DH would move to my current office and I would move to the family room. Probably put in French doors between the breakfast room and the family room. The pantry would be moved to the bottom left hand corner of the breakfast room and would go from the corner to the window. New cabinets/counters in the kitchen. The new cabinets with adjustable shelves and drawers on the bottom would improve storage. For my workspace, basically extend the countertop that the cooktop is on make it deeper. it would go into what is now the breakfast room and could have countertop seating there. The counter and cabinets would extend to where the pantry is now giving me more counter and storage space. An alternative that I would like to find a way to work would be to move the refrigerator down to that area (probably to where the breakfast room opening starts) and then extend the counter/cabinets to where the refrigerator is now. The issue there would be to have enough clearance between the refrigerator and the peninsula with the cooktop since it would now be much larger and deeper. It might be better to leave the refrigerator where it is. There would be no table in the breakfast room but there would be counter seating at the peninsula. What I like about this idea is that it greatly increases my storage space and workspace. It also doesn't move around a lot of stuff in the kitchen. My house is on a slab so moving stuff around like water lines or vents can be expensive. This doesn't move around a lot of expensive stuff. We discussed the possibility of a range or moving the cooktop but those involve having to deal with venting. Of course, this means using the family room as an office. That is fine as I never felt we needed two living areas. And we move the dining to the dining room next to the kitchen. That looks better for people coming in than having people see DH's office. No one would really be going to the family room/office unless they were specifically being asked to go there.