you have lovely warm woods, complementary counters, and white appliances, which look great!. There is probably a way to make the cabinets darker, but that won’t “lighten” the room. Also, it may make the white appliances seem out of place. For a low cost fix up, maybe try some glass tile backsplash... Your room looks nice to me, anyway, as is.

Hi Lauren,

I believe you might be able to have dark kitchen cabinets, if you paint the kitchen a very pale grey or blue- grey and change your light bulbs to a ''daylight'' color it'll brighten the space up .

Leave well enough alone. You’d have to do 5-6K in electrical to add lighting if you went with dark cabinets. What you have is infinitely better in many many ways. It’s also right at the forefront of the next trends as well. Dark is DONE. Rightfully so.

There are people here who are renovating TO your look!
If I were to make a change, I'd change your wall paint color. To me, it's very bland against lovely cabinets. Not too hip to all the white appliances nor sink, but can't think of an alternative that won't overwhelm the cabinets.

There is no such thing as making cabinets dark and brightening it up. Unless you make a new window and install flood lights, that is. LOL!

Did you just move in or something?

Change the color of the walls to something brighter. A soft blue would be lovely or even a blue/green color. The cabinets are fine as is.

To respond above: No we have been in there about 5yrs. This picture actually makes the kitchen colors look better, but in person everything is very yellow! We are finally at a point where we could spend some time changing things. We can probably declutter, but a lot is our drying rack area, followed by multiple small appliances that I use every day! At least I got our island cleared off permanently!! I also agree with changing the wall color. The lady who lived there previously was a heavy smoker and we had to repaint everything but couldn't choose separate colors for every room so the sand color went everywhere! I love the light blue and that is actually the plan (once I decide on the cabinets!).

Thanks everyone for the input!!