love it.  where to put it?  that is the question

mid-90′s honey-colored oak cabinets…heavy on the grain, light on style. white laminate countertop. floors are a dark chocolate-cherry color engineered wood. they’re not going anywhere, even though i kill myself struggling to keep them clean. honestly, the dust on these floors will send me to my grave.

here’s the granite i think we’re going to use. i have no idea what it’s called, but it sure is purty. it has flecks of goldish yellow, a gray that looks bluish or greenish depending on the light, a reddish brown, a blackish brown, and a beige-ish neutral base color. (seriously, i bet you’re amazed i haven’t made it as a skilled decorator with descriptions like that, huh?)

i’m thinking of putting an island in the middle – not a huge island, since we had one there already that i forced my husband to remove when we moved in – with a butcher block top and hanging pendant light above. i need extra surface space for food prep.

soooo….the question of the day. we were initially planning on painting the cabinets a very, very dark brown. think chocolate + espresso + a hint of tar…verging on black, but not quite black. i think it would look lovely with the granite we’ve chosen, but i worry that with the dark floors, our kitchen would feel like a tomb. if i go with dark cabinets, i think i’d pick a white paint for the island and jump on the two-color-cabinet bandwagon. should we do light cabinets and a dark island instead? would light cabinets be okay with that granite? would light (probably not pure white…not sure i can convince the husband to go with all white) cabinets look crappy?