I am glad to hear the feedback that the procedure worked. It has been over a year and everything is holding up great. I went down to Home depot and bought thin aluminum angle iron and sanded it to make it look like brushed nickel 1 inch X inch � mitered the edges and trimmed the bottom of the cabinets. Ill post pictures � it looks awesome. I even had my house appraised and the appraiser added the value of the cabinets as brand new as all of the other models in the neighborhood have oak cabinets. Anyways to answer your question, and I am not a wood expert I just posted my procedure because it worked for my application and saved a lot of money and steps that the "pros" would suggest What I found is that the pores in the wood will absorb paint in my naked/unfinished cabinets thus requiring primer. Originally I premiered one of my bathroom cabinets and the primer seemed to create a rough surface and fill in the wood grain. It turned out just okay. I finally took oak door in my kitchen and tested it without the primer but sand down the glaze on the door. I didn�t get crazy with it I just hit it with the rotary sander, sanded the detail with the sanding sponge, cleaned and painted. I then compared the door primed and not primed and found that the not primed looked significant better and more wood like, meaning it was hard to tell it was painted. And a year in a half later the paint has held up to usually kitchen ware and tear. So to answer your question what I would do is take a door and prime the back and not the front then paint both and compare � whichever one turns out better go with it. But in my opinion if you knock off the glaze and paint following my procedure you will find that this will be more wood like with fewer steps involved with great results. Tom

yes, gel stains are oil based. Try the stain on the inside of a cabinet door. Just follow the directions on the can.

Myself, if I have doubts about a choice, I go with something I know I will like. I don't want to risk a mistake, especially on something as expensive as cabinets or counters. I would not be able to replace them and would have to live with the bad choice. I am not a risk taker in that way. I went with medium cherry cabinets with a cinnamon stain and a Java wash. My counter will be Corian in tumbleweed which is fairly neutral. I saw the counter in a kitchen design display and loved it. I am a "weenie" when it comes to being risky with choices, so I pretty much go safe, traditional with the big purchases.

Another vote to leave it as is. It really is stunning. Brown has never gone away. It's just been reframed. For example, there isn't a single image of "Farmhouse" you can find on Instagram or Pinterest that isn't generously sprinkled with brown wood tones. Floors, shelves, kitchen islands. Brown is everywhere but because it's no longer featured as a brown leather sofa, people think brown is somehow a dated color. It's not; they just don't see it. You could totally shift the vibe of that space with an abundance of off-white on off-white. I wouldn't use a stark, pure white. The other thing is dark greens are coming in on trend like wildfire. I wouldn't touch that back splash. Because after a second round of being on trend, elements like dark green marble become classic.