Hello houzz community. First off, thank you so much for viewing my post. Please feel free to chime in.

I'm extremely excited – we're finally (semi) renovating our kitchen. It's currently not terrible, but has never been, well, "us".

Okay, so I've put the deposit down on some new, almost white, Calcatta Quartz countertops, with large, grey veining. They're absolutely gorgeous! I also have plans to swap out our beige, Spanish backsplash with traditional, white subway tile. I'll finish that off with a light grey grout.

Let's be honest, the new countertops blew out my kitchen budget. And our existing cabinets, although dated, are solid as heck; real wood, and should take paint like a champ. That said, fairly set on keeping them. The only question is what color?

I've always been a huge fan of black kitchen cabinets. However, I have a few concerns: Will the black cabinets make my kitchen feel tiny? Will they constantly show dust & grime? And although our little kitchen has a large skylight, and a small window over the sink, I live in the Pacific Northwest, where the grey winters can drag on for months. I'm a tad worried that all that black is going to depress the f*** out of me come February.

I have however managed to crudely photoshop a few renders of what our future kitchen might be. Keep reading.

Here is our (messy) kitchen today. You can see I've been playing with paint and hardware options.

All black. Can't you just hear the soft jazz and smell the beignets my wife would be cooking in this upscale kitchen?

White on top. Black on bottom… admired by penguins everywhere.

Grey could soften things up a bit. Brass pulls would work nicely here as well.

All white. I'd more than likely do a darker backsplash to break up the cabinets here.

Thanks for following along. Cheers!