I like wood cabinets and have them myself. You will find adding just a touch of white by painting the trim may be just what you need to add the brightness you would like. Here are some possibilities if you want to change up your cabinets a bit. None of these are necessary - just ideas and some I have done myself.

The large cabinet to the left of the window could be removed and replaced with decorative shelves or the door removed and transformed to a display cabinet. You would need to finish the inside of the cabinet. I used a beadboard fiberboard that I could cut with my utility knife and applied with construction adhesive. If you are concerned about doing anything permanent, you can use Command poster hanging strips to apply the fiberboard. You will need to be able to put the shelves back up - so keep that in mind - might have to drill a hole in the fiberboard to the peg hole in the original cabinet. The example below used wood shelf brackets to dress up the cabinet at the top corners. You can stain some to match your cabinet and do the same. There is a plate rail kit available from Kitchensource if you would want to add a plate rail.

You can have a carpenter remove the wood panel in one or more of the doors and replace with glass. It could be a decorative glass that is not easily seen through or regular glass. This picture show white cabinets, but this looks good with wood also. I have my corner cabinet in glass. Also, the picture below shows no wood valence. I removed mine when I was refinishing the cabinets and decided the room was brighter without, so have kept it down.

This suggestion is more costly. A pretty range hood adds a lot of charm to a kitchen. To do this you would need to relocate the microwave. You can add a shelf to a cabinet and move it there - this would require removing the door of that cabinet, having a proper shelf installed and doing similar work to the inside of the cabinet that you would need to do for the open cabinet example above. You could put the microwave on a counter, cart or have an outlet installed in the pantry and place it there. Then you could have a hood with vent insert installed. I ordered the hood and vent insert online and finished the hood to match my cabinets. Cost $650 to $1500 (or more) depending on where you get the hood and insert.

I think a great way to update an oak kitchen is a farmhouse sink. Oak kitchens lend themselves to the cozy character of farmhouse. The Ikea farmhouse sink is a very good buy and is very popular on the house decor blogs. I am looking at a cast iron farmhouse sink and hope to have it installed early next year.