S.O.S. Need Kitchen Paint Advice, Please!

My German Shepherd Security Agency warning sign

is still on our back door
 

For many years, our kitchen was white, as were most of our interior walls, because when we were building on/remodeling it was just easier to paint everything one color and be done with it. Years later, I decided to be adventurous and started painting rooms with a little more color. The kitchen got a pale yellow.

Although I love pale yellow on the exterior of our house, I have hated it in my kitchen since the day I stepped down off that step ladder and washed out my brushes. Maybe hate is too strong a word, but it certainly comes close.

 Last fall
Hopefully the railing, corbels, and post facings will go on this summer.

 If you hate the border,

just keep it to yourself please ;-)

I have talked to my daughter about painting the cabinets white, but you-know-who is dead set against it. Not sure why. It's not like there's some special virtue in oak - is there?? Maybe it's that Scandinavian heritage. But we do have an antique oak hutch and oak library table and chairs in our kitchen, so I can kinda see his point. Kinda.

 Oops! That's the James Herriot Kitchen

in Thirsk, North Yorkshire

(but it was in my 'kitchen' file)

I just noticed that it's YELLOW!
Hmmm. I wonder if that influenced me in choosing paint...

one wall of our kitchen is map

So with all the oak items and the gray and white floor and the brick, do you have any ideas of what color to paint our kitchen? It is in the middle of the house so it gets light from the bank of windows across the west, from the patio doors, and from the pass-through that looks into our office which has a bank of windows along the north. It can't really tolerate anything dark.

And to complicate matters, I just saw a copy of the May issue of This Old House magazine. A kitchen was all white except for like a pale aqua on the cabinets, which were gorgeous! Hmmm.

Isn't that spectacular?

Love that Stratton Blue by Benjamin Moore!
I think that Magali got me started on that pale blue/green.

Of course I would still leave the hutch,

the library table and chairs,

and the window trim

in their original oak.

And actually, if my kitchen looked that good (as in the TOH magazine), I would have to redo all the other rooms on the main floor. Who wants to do that!? Which reminds me of my old business ed. teacher who won some contest with the prize being all new carpet throughout their house. By the time the carpet was installed, they decided it made everything else look bad, so they ended up spending a ton of money on new furniture. Let that be a lesson.

 Yes, little white lights up all year

Aloe and green onions to the right of the hutch

Dog water to the left

Do you think it makes my guests feel at home when I remind them, 'Don't trip over the dog water' when they're walking from the kitchen to the living room? :-)  And really, it's not like I can move the dog water, because Misty is blind...

By the way, did you know that when you buy green onions, you can use the tops and replant the bulbs so that they grow more green onion tops? Of course you have to make sure you're buying the ones with all those little threadlike roots. This was Kevin's experiment and he's been using green onions all winter from those he purchased in December. The hard part is remembering to use them!

I digress.

Anyway, any kitchen paint advice would be much appreciated. I need to do something to those walls this summer, even if I don't paint the cabinets. Got an opinion on the cabinets? Paint? No paint? Give it up?

All nice suggestions are appreciated, and almost all suggestions are tolerated.  :-)

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This post is linked to
Make it Pretty Monday 

and

Le Chateau des Fleurs

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