with living there for a while before you do anything, but I WILL SAY when we came in this house for the first time, I knew I would paint almost everything in site that was wood stained. In fact, I decided on painting the trim on 2 windows in my living room and leaving the actual wood window stained wood, and it has just not looked right to me, so I am about to paint that now too. In a fairly busy and eclectic house like I have the painted trim just looks so much cleaner and more like a canvas for the rest of my furnishings and that is my point, MY furnishings just look better with the painted wood, yours may do ok keeping the wood and maybe staining it darker. Just my humble opinion JMHO, LOVE your sunroom and all the space you seem to have.

I love frenchkitty's kitchen. I used her kitchen as one of my inspiration photos for my new kitchen, last year. I did not know what colors she used. (Thanks). First, I totally agree that you should paint the desk the same as the cabinets. Second, any reason you are not going to paint the bricks on the island??? Do they match some other bricks in your home? You could paint them the same as the cabinets if you wanted to downplay them or leave them if you like them. Third, I used SW antique white as our trim color thoughout our home, plus all the kitchen cabinets. The painter did glaze the kitchen cabinets with a brown glaze mix and I just love them. They are a soft cream with the brown antiqued look. We used SW Ivoire for all the walls and now I want to repaint the kitchen walls a deeper tone of gold or caramel. I am little confused. What color are you leaning toward for the china cabinet? I liked Patty Cakes idea of using a color and then perhaps glazing over it. I am not crzay about the idea of brown. Too safe and boring. I do love the French blues or perhaps a soft bluish green. If depends on what other colors you use in your kitchen and home. You actually could also do a bright shade of color with no glaze. It all depends on your taste. But not brown. Sorry.

The problem with TSP is that it turns oils and grease into a form of soap. It is not good to paint over soap either! It doesn't have to be flooded, but just rinsed. If there is an advantage to SP, it is it too dulls hard varnishes and enamels. For general cleaning, i agree with paintguy 22, Dirtex is a fine product that doesn't need all the rinsing that TSP does. I do feel that 100 grit sandpaper is too rough, possibly leaving scratches which might show through the new paint film.. 180 or 220 will dull, but not scratch. I prefer cut sheet sandpaper to sanding blocks. Most flat cabinet surfaces are not as flat as you think.,scalping of high spots and missing of low spots can result. Also, blocks don't get into machined detail like ogee routed edges.

There are some articles online about removing permanent marker from wood. Try to remove it and do simple things first as you may change your mind about what you want to do as you progress. See what you think after the walls are cleaned up / painted. I would next paint the backsplash. I would look into cladding the island in beadboard - not sure if that can be done - there are some construction adhesives that stick to about anything. I have oak cabinets and am fine with them - but I am not living with all the other surfaces. I might remove all the uppers on the sink wall. My kitchen has about half the cabinets yours does and I get along fine - with 4 kids:) This is my wood kitchens idea book with both new and older refreshed wood kitchens. It might give you some ideas as to paint or working with the older cabinets - especially if a few years turns into 10 years and a new kitchen is still not in the budget. https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/75202366/list/wood-kitchens Sometimes a new house has unexpected expensive cost - new roof or furnace and the more cosmetic projects have to wait. I live happily with my oak cabinets, but I agree that there are surfaces in your kitchen which would drive me batty, and if nothing else I would attack with paint those areas before the cabinets.