I say paint the insides white, too. Otherwise, it will be like opening up a portal to a black hole, and you will suck all the light out of the kitchen when you open a cabinet.

We said we were going to paint the insides when we painted our honey colored cabinets white. I did one and gave up. Maybe it's just because I didn't have a painting buddy but the insides sucked the paint up more than the outsides and it was hard on the back, too.

The kitchen in the house we recently purchased has painted white cabinets inside and out. It seems that the white paint is always flaking off so that I have to wash everything before I use it. If it were me, I wouldn't have done it or at the very least selected a paint that won't flake off.

Painting the insides will be beastly work, but it will be very rewarding in the end. Clean well, and use a good sealer/primer, and they won't suck up as much paint.

I think you're better off using contact paper on the bottom of the shelves, though - paint might wind up sticking to whatever item you put on it.

Paint them a light color or white. Sure it's a lot of work but you will really notice the difference, not only in terms of lightening the kitchen, but in being able to see and clean inside the cabinets.

Consider lining the shelves with linoleum in a light pattern. Talk about sturdy! It wipes clean and will last forever.

Instead of painting have you considered a plastic laminate like Formica? It may cost a little more than paint but it will last a lot longer and not flake off. Easy to keep clean and comes in many different colors. They have a water base glue so the gassing of the vapors won't be needed. If you can take out the selves it will be easier to fit the laminate inside the cupboards.

Paper the insides something interesting and light in color that will coordinate with the rest of the kitchen.

I just recently painted my black cabinets white, and was debating whether to bother with the insides as well (which were the original brown wood.) I am soooo glad I decided to paint the insides--it's so much brighter inside, making it a lot easier to find what I'm looking for. Plus, I think it just wouldn't have looked as nice if I'd left it brown. Things I put inside do stick a little, so putting down a liner or paper is probably a good idea.

It's a lot of work, but nothing ruins an outside paint job more than when you open the door and see the old cabinetry inside.

My first house was like that. I think they painted the outside of the doors to brighten the kitchen up (which worked), but as soon as you opened one, it was like going back to the 80s and it made their whole effort pointless since you could immediately tell it was a (lazy) DIY job.

We painted our knotty pine cabinets white. We didn’t paint the insides where we kept the doors, but did paint the insides of a couple cabinets we took the doors off to have open shelves. The cabinets we left open, we painted the sides white and the back wall gray. I honestly don’t even notice the insides of the unpainted cabinets. Having painted a couple of them, I would say I would have been fed up painting them all. It’s a lot of surfaces to paint once you get going, so I don’t think it’s worth the time.

Gosh, I would call a professional to do it, and I wouldn't even care about the cost.

Thanks everyone! Great suggestions and first hand experiences. I really like the idea of using a color on the back of the cabinets, but doing everything else in white. Hiring a professional is likely not in our budget any time soon, but I can see how it would eliminate a lot of headache if we could afford it.

The good thing about the insides of the cabinets is that you could do one or two at a time to make it easier because they won't really show. Then after doing one you could decide if the work is worth it.

I like how a pop of color in the back of a cabinet or closet looks - but with the white you are also opening up the space and making it easier to see. Whatever you do, if you decide to paint be sure to use a good primer to avoid that peeling off problem described above. I have a friend who neglected to take care in choosing her primer and she has that problem.

Paper is a cute and temporary option. If you do the contact paper route, which is also considerable work (moreso if you are like me and found a patterned paper), that will get dirty and need to be changed or taken down at some point. If I could do it again I'd probably paint the backs and tops of the cabinets and use cork contact paper on the bottom shelves.

I painted the cabinets in my kitchen white last year. They looked almost exactly like yours (my counter tops also look just like yours). I spray lacquered them myself. I had to tape the kitchen off with plastic sheeting and cover everything i didn't want paint on. It was a definite pain in the ass, however... It was totally worth it! It looks soooo much more professional and is infinitely more durable. I can scrub them with an abrasive sponge for all I'm worth and all that happens to the paint is it becomes quite clean.

also... if you don't need to add pulls i think it might look more modern without them. there are so many modern kitchens lately with the drawers and cabinetry lacking pulls. in fact if you google images modern kitchen 80% of the kitchens don't include pulls. just a thought.

I lined the cabinets in my rental apartment with thin sheets of cork (you can buy cork contact paper, too), since I couldn't paint them.

It was great. The cork muffled noise from rattling dishes and added a neutral touch to the blinding-white cabinets. Also, cork is antibacterial.

For the love of God, whatever you do, don't make it too trendy - whoever owned my parents' house before the moved in in '83 (it was built around '75 and I think it had two previous sets of owners), painted the inside of the kitchen cabinets this cross between mint and avocado green. It's hideous. And even though my parents have replaced the fridge, and the stove (whose fume hood also used to be a dark avocado green), they've never done anything about the inside of those cabinets. Either go with white, or line them with something the next person can hide or remove easily!

I painted the insides of my 50 year old plywood cabinets and shelves with 2 coats of Ben Moore Advance primer, and just left them primer white. I put cork liner on the shelves. It was a horrible job but I'm happy with the results. It's hard to see inside the cabinets, and hard to navigate so I got a lot of paint on myself.

Learn from my mistakes: wear a flashlight headband and long sleeve paint shirt. Start at the BACK PANEL of the cabinet and paint towards the opening. Do the bottom panel next to last, and save the opening edges for very last.

I had to climb inside a couple of the bottom cabinets -- but I didn't realize it at first so I had painted the parts I could reach first. Big mistake, as I got primer all over myself and it doesn't come off easily.