Open the door to a whole new look in cabinets

As I discussed in my first post, one of the things I disliked about our home when we purchased it were the outdated 1980s European-style cabinets in the kitchen and three bathrooms.
You've seen the kind of cabinets I'm talking about. Mine were ivory laminate with a strip of inset oak wood at the top used to open the drawers and cabinets, instead of hardware. They just didn't fit in with the traditional look I was after. But, with a limited budget for home renovations, replacing or refacing the cabinetry wasn't an option in the near future. I either had to live with the outdated cabinets or try to disguise them.
My remedy proved to be an easy one, requiring only a few feet of decorative trim from Home Depot, some antique hardware purchased at a yard sale and a bit of paint.
For the master and upstairs bathrooms, which have a more formal look, I chose a decorative rope trim approximately the width of the oak trim. I used a hand saw to cut the trim the length of each cabinet door and drawer. I then attached the trim directly on top of the oak pulls, first with wood glue and then with finishing nails to secure the pieces. I then sanded the laminate and painted it and the trim with an ivory paint. To give it an aged appearance, I painted over the entire surface again with a dark brown watered-down paint that I then wiped off, leaving the dark paint in the grooves of the trim. Next, I measured and drilled holes in the cabinet drawers and doors for the antique hardware I'd purchased, and installed the new decorative pulls. With new "old-fashioned" faucets installed with the help of my husband, the result was even better than I expected. No one looking at the cabinetry could tell it camouflaged ugly European cabinets.
For the downstairs guest bathroom off the family room, which has a more casual decor, I chose to frame the cabinet doors and drawer with plain, flat 1-inch-wide wood pieces. And since the pieces were unadorned, I didn't even have to worry about cutting them at 45-degree angles.
Because the wood pieces were wider than the inset oak pulls, I couldn't nail them directly on top of the oak so I glued and nailed them just below the old oak pulls. I then disguised the old pulls by painted it the same ivory as the rest of the cabinet and antiquing it with a darker paint. You can still see the indentations of the oak pulls, but they're hardly noticeable.
I liked the look so much, I plan to do the same for my kitchen cabinets. It'll be a lot more work but the result and savings will be worth it.