Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - painting kitchen cabinets help please!!

I have some horrible, horrible 1970's kitchen cabinets (complete with harvest gold backsplash and countertops). My husband gave me the choice: new cabinets and keep the countertops, or paint the cabinets and get new countertops, sooooo I'm painting the cabinets. The only problem is, I am not a real creative person. The main colors I want in my kitchen (which will coordinate with my adjoining dining room) is ivory, black and a dark red. The cabinets are flat panel.

I was thinking of painting the bases ivory and the doors themselves black, but cannot picture how that will look. Anyone who is good at "mentally" seeing and could give me any suggestions, please help!!!

:wall:

Personally I wouldn't care too much for black doors but to each his own :) IMO all ivory would look best. I'd suggest priming and apply the ivory and then painting 1 door black so you can visualize it better. If it is a go - great, if not you only have to reprime 1 door ;)


Be sure to read this before you apply any paint/primer
http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=292098

Thanks for the advice. That link you sent was great!
I went to a paint visualizer and tried 2 different combos: ivory for walls, backsplash and ceiling and black on the cabinetry, and then reverse. Both look good, but of course the only pictures you can use are designer kitchens, so who knows what it would look like in my kitchen :confused:

I took a door off and I'm playing now.

Hmm if you have any photoshop skills, it would be easy to take a picture of your kitchen now, and change things around to show the different possible looks you could create with just a difference of color.

Um....if you are interested (and unable to do it yourself of course), I would be more than happy to do that. Wouldn't be that hard, and I'd be interested to see the different possibilities myself. Just need a picture of what it looks like now.

haha...i have NO photoshop skills. Hubby does, but he's not being helpful right now. He thinks the kitchen is fine as it is. (I think he kinda misses the 70's!)
I'll get some pictures tomorrow and email them to you. I really appreciate it!

I used the exact same color combination in my kitchen as you have described:

I went with ivory / cream colored cabinets (painted) with a dark brick red for the walls. I then added black stone countertops / spalsh with black appliances. Turned out very well and the cabinets really pop in their dark surroundings. Food for thought...

That sounds like exactly what I want... you wouldn't happen to have any pictures handy, do you? :D