Thank you to everyone who commented! I appreciate it so much! I'd like to give a shout out to everyone who contributed and hung in there with us to see tthe project completed. Wayne, Danielle, and the kitchen install crew from Wayne's Custom Woodcraft. Greg Camlis of Camlis Contracting and his guys, Hardwood Flooring install, staining, refinishing: Dennis Pupulin and Carlo, Mahjeb of Creative Stairs and Railings, Stan of Pronto plumbing, Trena of John's Furniture Repair, Philip of UrbanHome, Mike LaFontaine window install. Thank you all!

Positively gorgeous! And you look wonderful there ( matching your lovely bouquet!!). When it all comes together and we are not obsessing over each component you can really appreciate it. Everything looks great and I know you had trepidations about the backsplash but honestly - it all looks fantastic. I admire you for going with it and getting it done. Enjoy it! and thanks for answering my questions!

Francesca, you're welcome. I would highly recommend that in your budget you keep some set aside for lighting. Adding can lights to the kitchen is going to be instrumental whether you paint the cabinets or not. Paint can only do so much in brightening a space. There needs to be light whether real or artificial and based on the little bit of the ceiling I can see in your photos you really don't have nearly enough lighting. Based on your inspiration photos I have some thoughts. You should be able to get someone to repair your under sink doors if you choose to stay with your cabinets as is. If you were to do that I would definitely recommend the steps I outlined above as well as some brighter hardware. That said I question whether you will be happy doing that. So I would consider this for kitchen: 1. Remove skinny cabinet details on each side of hood 2. remove appliance garage to left of stove 3. take down sink counter to one level 4. Paint the cabinetry a warm white 5 wrap bottom portion of hood in a wood. 6. paint door (pantry?) black? 7. If you wanted a contrasting cabinet bank painting the island or the sink bank of cabinets a black and then wrapping the dry wall back side in the same wood as on the hood would look wonderful 8. add new hardware to cabinets 9. new tile backsplash taken up to ceiling behind hood 10. new countertops 11. chandelier/pendent over island For family room have you ever considered covering the fireplace stone with drywall and moulding?

your most recent inspiration pic is gorgeous. the glass doors and black cup pulls are perfect! I say do it! if you do decide to move forward with staining, go to a paint store and ask for advice. staining over a finished product is not truly staining. it can't penetrate the original topcoat and just sits on top -- so it's more like translucent tint. those look like good quality cabinets, you might find that it's worth it to wait until you can afford a professional job rather than diy. if you were super tempted, my advice is to do a subtle change. the darker you go with the new color, the streakier it's going to look. do a big patch test on the back of a door (the entire door so you can really see the effect). make sure you can apply it evenly. once it fully dries, see if it can be easily scratched off.