Kitchen Blahs!!!

As I'm stumbling around my kitchen this morning at 5:00am making a bottle for my daughter, I noticed how much I dislike my kitchen cabinets. They are dismal oak stained square boxes that merely serve the purpose of housing my kitchen junk! How could I have settled for such? I remember...our builder under bid the cabinets and the painted ones were way more than we could budget. My dream of cream French Country cabinets with mocha glaze had to be scrapped for oak stained boxes. If I have learned anything, it's not to settle for things you don't like! Now I'm not saying spend a bunch of money to get what you like. I'm saying get what you like and do it on a budget. If I were thinking, I would have said: "Deliver the cabinets unfinished and leave them in the basement. I will apply my paint/glaze and you can come install them when they are dry!!" Now I fully understand hind site is 20/20. So now I have to choose: 1) paint them or 2) live with them and believe me I've been living with them for 5 years now...its time for a change! Wonder how well my hubbie will take the news? Men tend to LOVE stained wood!!!
The cabinets are not the only issue I want to address in my kitchen. I have an island in the middle of the room that is very ODD. It has a raised bar area. Now this isn't uncommon if the island is used to separate the kitchen area from lets say the living area. However, in my case the kitchen and breakfast area are one large room. So why is this "barrier island" floating in the middle of my kitchen? Note to self: things always look different on paper than they do in reality!! Guess my next project in the kitchen would be remodeling the kitchen island. Maybe I could add some bead board or ornate turned legs?? Any ideas??