Above poster is right. You need to make sure it is WOOD and not painted particle board or the like. I stripped and re stained all of the cabinets in my entire house. I started with the smallest area and worked on the little issues, etc before I tackled the kitchen. If you have 2 adults who are capable of stripping/staining, then the kitchen could be done in a week IF you have ample space to lay all of the doors/drawers to dry/be stained. You'd also need to dedicate full days to it. It isn't HARD by any means. It is time consuming because of the number of steps involved and dry time. That said, I spent around $150 to restain my kitchen cabinets. Stripper, brush for stripper, mineral spirits, sand paper, application sponges, stain and polyurethane, and rated mask because the stuff is POTENT. For having them done professionally, a friend of mine who is a kitchen designer in the area said I'd saved about $7-8K by doing it myself. I'm in Orange County, CA. Here are before and afters: Before: After:

My mother had just a few of her oak cabinets refinished at a reasonable cost. She lives in the Midwest, and sometimes prices for that type of work are lower here. I cannot tell the older cabinets from the refinished - he matched the stain that well. I refinished my own cabinets because of wear around the handles and worn finish on the sink base cabinet. Fortunately there are not that many cabinets in my kitchen - and I did not do the island. When I refinished my cabinets, I also added a few new unfinished oak pieces - a wood hood, spice boxes and a plate rail. I had to play around with some stain combinations to get the new oak pieces to match the older ones. Also I have to admit, I did not refinish the two small cabinets over the fridge. They were in fine shape and for the most part, I finished the cabinets to look like they did before. If I were you I would first look into the cost of refinishing unless you feel comfortable trying it yourself. Be careful of wood stains that accentuate the grain. I am not fond of some Miniwax stains, but their "Pecan" would be a good place to start. Use the back of drawer boxes or cabinet doors to test out stains. If you can't sand out the darker areas, you may have to get new doors for those cabinets. Many home center stores sell unfinished oak replacement doors. Also, most of the kitchen styles / companies sold in Home Center stores can be ordered unfinished. If you can find a company with a similar door style with solid oak doors - you may be able to order the doors unfinished. I ordered my spice boxes from Shrock through Menards and they are solid oak. My kitchen: https://www.houzz.com/photos/my-pics-work-in-progress-phvw-vp~93784356 https://www.houzz.com/photos/my-pics-work-in-progress-phvw-vp~93784291

I think the first step is making sure that investing a bunch of money in what sounds like is essentially just a cosmetic change makes sense. Are your cabinets in good shape? Do they have drawers? Is the layout good? Quartz or nicer granite counter, installed, will often ballpark in the $75-100/sq ft. Wood floors start at about $10/sq ft installed. You can definitely spend more. Cabinet restained maybe around $3k (but depends on how many cabinets you have) Appliance $$$ depends on brands, features, etc but you should be able to get prices on those fairly easily.

forget staining them. as mentioned above, it's actually more work than painting. you have to get them down to raw wood again before applying a new stain. (if you want it to look good) If you were thinking about doing a darker stain, you could do what they've done here to resemble a dark stain. General Finishes Dark Chocolate paint, and 2 coats of their clear coat. (you still have to sand and prime prior to painting) this is from a poster here on Houzz who shared this. right now, your backsplash, tile flooring and countertop are at odds. It's very busy with those 3, and all the other stuff you have going on in there. you have a lot of knick-knacks, plaids, stripes, tile pattern on the floor, granite movement, mosaic tile movement, etc. they really compete with one another. I'd remove the backsplash and that 4" granite piece up the back. Remove everything on top of the cabinets. Pare down half of what you have everywhere else. Paint your cabinets and get new hardware. I'd paint out the trim and baseboards to white, but that's me. on these first few pics, notice how these owners dealt w/the small space above the cabinets by have boxes built to fill in above it. If you're painting, this is easily done. Before/After. paint color is Shoji White with glaze, and Annonymous on the island the one above, and this one, show how removing old tile and the 4" granite piece up the back, make a big difference in look. you could always do a nicer crown molding on the tops of your cabs. look how nice it looks w/the white cabinets, darker wall color, and no stuff collecting dust on top! Maria Kilim before/after. she painted all the oak trim/baseboards, windows, etc. If you want to paint, hire a pro Cabinet Painter, not house painter. ask them how they prep the cabs and how they plan on painting. It's a ton of work to do and cost is going to reflect that. If someone gives you an estimate of 2-3k to do yours, don't fall for it. Read this if you want to know just how much work it takes to get professional looking painted cabinets. https://www.evolutionofstyleblog.com/how-to-paint-your-kitchen-cabinets-like