I'm not 100% sure what you're asking, but if you're looking for suggestions whether to make the lower cabinets grey and the upper cabinets white or vice versa, then I would be tempted to make the lower cabinets grey. I think this would help to make the ceiling feel higher and the overall space larger and brighter. But, it may depend upon what style you're going for, whether you have an island benchtop and, if so, what material/colour will be on the rear/exposed side of the island benchtop, the amount of natural lighting, etc. You can easily search through Houzz photos by room, size, colour, materials, etc. Here are a few examples I found from a quick search which may help:

Have you been to visit some kitchen showrooms? You can customise the photo search here on Houzz quite a bit. For example, you can simply select [dark wood[(https://www.houzz.com.au/photos/kitchen-design-ideas-with-dark-wood-cabinets-phbr1-bp~t_10444~a_17-103) cabinet finish in the filter options. Then add more filters like floor colour, kitchen layout, cabinet style, wall colour etc if you wish. Leave the benchtop and splashback options open and see what results you get. You can then save any photos that appeal to your ideabook.

Hi Val, Your house has beautiful timber floors and Cornices to work with and the kitchen even though very good quality has limited storage from what we can see in the photo hence my suggestion to change the glass to allow for better storage. You could add extra shelves and use as pantry space. A long light similar to the one in the photo could look good, you can get them a bit shorter as well, check out the splash of colour in the stools, New York Bar style. Can we see a photo of what's opposite the kitchen. Have you had any quotes to have the kitchen painted and what do you think you could sell it for. I say this because even though it is a high quality kitchen from the 80's they don't necessarily function very well. cheers

One step at a time. Do painting as planned then sit back and look. You might decide the fresh timber is a great complement to the grey.