Bungalow 4

I have been toying with the idea of doing a kitchen makeover in my house for a while now.  Our kitchen opens right up to our living room, so what ever I do, I have to consider how it will tie into the rest of the space.  We have dark wood cabinets that are only 4 years old, yet I want to paint them.  I first thought about painting them to brighten up the kitchen.  Like I said, its dark cabinets and dark floors.  When we picked out the cabinets when the house was being built, our only choice was to pick from about 5 colors of stained wood.  I didn't want stained wood, I wanted white.  I do love our dark hardwood floors though.  The cabinets, they're nice, but they just don't have that wow factor.  Our kitchen has no windows.  it does open up on one side to the living room which has windows and the other side of the kitchen is connected to the dining room (new playroom) by 2 white french doors.  So, my idea is to paint the cabinets white or another light color.  We have a black island and this gold/black/white/tan specked granite.  I wish I had white subway tile backsplash and white marble countertops, but I don't, and my budget says no to that for now.

 I can't beleive I have even been debating this project for so long.  Normally I just do it and if I don't like it, I redo it until I love it.  I think the hesiation is that if I paint the cabinets and don't like it, I can't go back to the wood.  I just want to make sure that whatever I do I love it when I'm looking at it from my couch.

 Here's one idea.... paint the cabinets a whiteish color and paint the exisitng beige walls with large horizontal stripes and paint the 2 white french doors black to tie in with the island.  What do you think?  I am afraid if I paint the cabinets an actual color, that I will tire of it quickly.  Here's a few pics of interior doors painted black.

Another idea is to paint the bottom cabinets black and the uppers white.  I'm loving this picture. My kitchen would look similar to this, just imagine the tan speckled granite and beige subway tile.  What do you think?









I would love to hear your thoughts.