ALL of our cabinet surfaces, inside, outside, and underneath are stained (including those areas you never see).

Our cabinets are the original ones that came with this tract house when we bought it new in 1975. They still look good and have never been refinished--not even when we did a mini-redo to the kitchen last April/June.

My uppers are finished and painted. My old cabinets were not finished and it drove me crazy because they were viewable from my couch in the adjoining FR. It was icky, cheap plywood. (Oh, oh. More flashbacks.)

Cabinet vendors I interviewed said that in order to get finished bottoms on our semi-custom cabinets, we'd have to have the insides of the cabinets stained to match as well, something we didn't need. So the vendor I chose was the one who offered a simple, cheap fix: For the two cabinets whose undersides will be visible when sitting at the breakfast table, he has ordered a thin cherry "skin" stained to match our cabinets. Our installer will affix this skin to the undersides of the cabinets, but I'm not certain at this point whether this will be done before or after the UC lights and light rails are installed.

Interesting. I'm finishing the bottoms of the uppers, but was hoping not to bother with the insides of the drawer cabs, and wondered if I was being cheesy. I'm doing the drawers in and out, of course, but was not going to do in the cabinet. My brother gave me a hard time about it.

The bottoms of our uppers are finished, same stain as the doors and sides (which all come finished too). I just went and checked the drawer cabinets. Ours are finished with varathane, not stained, as the insides of our cabinets are not stained, just veneered and varathaned. IF your drawers are full depth, I don't think it's necessary, but if your deeper drawer boxes are shallower than your drawer fronts (mine are), then you may want to have the insides finished off, at least with a coat of spray varathane.