I like your idea for white cabs and different color island. Personally, I would not do different colors on the cabs. I think black counters are hard to keep looking nice......they show every speck and streak.

Do you really hate your current counters? If not, how about just painting the cabs a cream color to blend with them along with a cream subway tile? You could do the island in the deepest color in the granite for contrast. The cream would certainly brighten the space and save you a lot of $ on new counters.

We have granite counters that look black. They do show dust and are harder to keep up than the granite we have upstairs which is similar colors to what you already have.

I get wanting to paint and lighten up the space, but to be honest I'm baffled at your desire to change the granite. That's actually a more expensive higher end slab and a lot prettier than the back would be.

I agree with Joanie. If you look on Houzz, kitchen your size and bigger are all white.

Agree that the existing stone looks pretty good and if you were willing to post a close up I ll bet it has a lot of grays, caramels and creams that could be used in some combination.... would brighten up the room a LOT. Sure use a white... if a light creamy white that relates. The problem with it its kind of blah, none of the elements particularly relate to the others colorwise. When you said colors I thought that meant we would be using... colors!

I agree with the others about painting your cabinets white (uppers and lowers) and keeping your current granite. If you do that you might want to reconsider the color for your island, or keep it white too.

I have nearly black quartz counters. It's a great look with white cabinets, esp. if you have enough natural light in your kitchen. But they won't do you any favors if your kitchen is already a little dark. And my personal experience with dark counters is different than Lukki's and Joanie's. Mine show NOTHING (except salt, flour, white sugar and milk). Why is that bad? If you like pristinely clean counters, as I do, you miss lots of smears and stuff. You can feel it, but you can't see it. So it's like cleaning blindfolded. My counters look great, but I'd never get dark ones again.

I have to admit after reading your post, I do experience that too Linelle. I love our counters and wouldn't change them even if I could. We actually left the anomolies in ours that people tend to cut out of the slab so it would be unique and interesting. That's the beauty of the stone.

Thank you for the input. I know they are nice quality granite counters. They are just more yellow/brown than what wife wants. She wants the fixer-upper look, and in person these look more dated.

I do think we will go with all white cabinets and a color on the island, with a butcher block top there. Appreciate the suggestions!

Here they used wide beadboard to hide the soffit. The beams add a lot to the look too.

Halpert at the Vineyard · More Info

I understand the pull to white cabinets, truly. Our last home had white painted cabinets and black counters. I loved the look, but the clean up was much more challenging than with our wood cabinets and lighter colored counters in this house. The black counters gobbled light and had to be cleaned by feel. Our absolute black granite in our upstairs bathroom is a nightmare to maintain; I'm so frustrated and disappointed with it.

The cabinets and counters you have now are very pretty, and I really like your light over the island. Before you change everything, please look at wood farmhouse style kitchens to see if there are elements that you could incorporate with your current cabinets and counters. I will give some links after I post this. (I just lost the first post right when I was almost done writing and pasting ideas! Argh...)

Fixer Upper: Papaw's House
Wood farmhouse kitchens

Undercabinet lights, and can lights if you're interested, would go a long way toward brightening your kitchen. You could swap out some of the center upper door panels for glass for a lighter feel. Or, you could replace the upper to the right of your sink with rustic open shelves.

You could take out the island, replacing it with a unique drawer base (drawers are the king of kitchen storage) and a chunky wooden countertop. Your bar stools look comfy, but you could also replace those with more metal industrial style stools for the farmhouse style look, if desired.

We just remodeled our family room in a warm, slightly rustic style with pine planks on the ceiling, and I found this rug plays extremely well with all the different wood tones in the room. It comes in a runner, is relatively inexpensive, and is polypropylene, which I've heard is practically bomb proof, so it should be able to survive life on a kitchen floor. I really debated about going bright and white farmhouse style vs something a little more woody and warm. Seeing this rug on the floor really made me feel settled about the direction I chose.

Rug from Home Depot, these pictures do it no justice.

The rug in our house, if you scroll down you'll see it in another GW house where it shows even better. There are so many rugs out there; just the right one might help your kitchen come to life.

You have so many options! Have fun planning, dreaming, and executing your decisions. : )

If you do go with black granite, consider doing a honed or leathered finish. We just did that in our cabin. I really didn't want granite but my husband did. We compromised and did leathered black and we both love it. We have had it for about 6 months and find it easy to keep looking nice, it doesn't show dust and such the way the shiny surface did.

Here are pics mid renovation, still need to paint cabinets and replace hardware.

With anthracite silgranite sink, plumbing not in yet in this pic.

D_gw here is a pic looking from kitchen to great room

What a glorious view! After seeing this adjacent room, my concern is that if you lose all of the brown in your kitchen, it will look out of place. If you are keeping your lovely unpainted trim and beige walls in this room, your kitchen will need something earthy/natural/brown to tie it together. Your granite would accomplish that task beautifully. Think hard before you do a fixer upper style kitchen, because you could be starting a massive domino effect (which you may already be planning!!). What a lovely home!!

edited to add: d_gw, great minds and all that. I posted without reading your thoughtful reply above.

Your great room is lovely and also works really well with the current design of your kitchen. Which is probably not what you want to hear.

I would consider keeping the lowers the same so there is some flow between the kitchen and family room. (Unless you plan on painting all your great room trim white, which then will work with a white kitchen). Paint your uppers similar to your wall color so the soffits aren't as prominent. And there won't be as much choppiness by the ceiling.

For counters I think black might be too dark. Perhaps you can do a dark stained butcher block on the island and a light marble or quartz with veins of brown and beige on the counters.