Decorating and Design - Kithcen Cupboard Help

We just finished colorwashing our kitchen walls pacific green and a white that was just slightly tinted green, they look real good, but now I have a problem-the kitchen cupboards!! They go around half of the kitchen and are a dark brown melamine, I don't like them so I was going to paint them, my only trouble is what color. Our kitchen is quite large and gets a fair amount of natural light, my husband thinks white would be good, but we have 3 kids so I don't know about that, would the slightly tinted green that we used on the walls be better, or a whole other color-oh please help, I would love to get this painting job done so I could get back to normal life! I know how hard painting melamine is and do not want to get the cupboards painted only to discover I hate the color and I want something that will make the kitchen look big and bright-we spend most of our time in this room and I want to like what I see but am completley clueless about color.

Since painting melamine is an undertaking all to itself, I would use some "try it out" techniques first to help me decide which color. First, buy enough white cardboard to cover the fronts of at least half (preferably all) of your cabinets. Cut it to fit and tape them up on the cabinets. This will give you the feeling of what all white cabinets would look like. "Live with it" for the better part of a day or at least the time periods that you would normally spend in the kitchen. Next, paint one side of them in the white-tinted with green to see how you like that color. Take pictures of what it looks like since memories can fail you, at least mine does!! If you still don't think you have a "That's It!" color to select, try painting the other side of the cardboard in an antique white or beige based color like biscuit. Keep in mind that any change from dark cabinets to light will be a dramatic transformation for you. Do whatever it takes to make sure you are happy with the color before it becomes a major production to change it again right before the holidays!!
Good Luck!!!

i totally agree with "onourown" about those tricks to make sure you can visualize it!

as far as the color choice goes, white would be very crisp & clean looking. however, you didn't mention what your kitchen flooring is - wood, vinyl, tile? if it's creamy colored at all, the white cabinets will make it look super dingy, dirty and old! if that's the case, you'll want to go with the slightly tinted color, or maybe even the true pacific green color for a more monochromatic color scheme. it wouldn't be as dark as the brown you have now, probably, and it would be a color you like!

another idea: are your cabinet doors plain and flat? if so, if you go with the white and they end up seeming like too much plain white, i've seen where you can apply little trims to the fronts of cabinets to create a "raised panel" effect. then you could paint that trim in the true pacific green color (and maybe the inside area of the trim in the colorwash technique) to tie it all together & add some interest to otherwise flat cabinet fronts.

Annette is right on the money about colorwashing the interior and painting the trim pacific green for a great unifying color scheme!! I think this would work with either the white or a creamy beige for the remaining areas of the cabinets. It would also work if the cabinets are not flat, just paint the recessed area in the colorwash and the routed portion of the frame in the true pacific green. I'm excited now, so please let us know what you did, how you decided, and how it turned out!