Kitchen cabinets: to splurge, or not to splurge?

A.'s kitchen hasn't been touched since the early 80s.  It's starting to die on us—the stove has two fully working burners, a knobless one that needs to be turned on with pliers, and one that doesn't work at all, and some cabinet hinges are breaking—but for a kitchen that old, it has held up remarkably well.  The fridge and dishwasher still work (will the current fridges last thirty years?), and it doesn't look nearly as dated as you'd expect.  If you look closely you'll notice the laminate and the appliance brands that are no longer recognizable (Tappan ranges anyone?!), but if you don't look closely the kitchen still feels quite airy and fresh.  It's a rare early-80s kitchen that still doesn't look too bad.

But now we're remodeling.  New cabinets, appliances, and countertops, and a new coat of paint in the kitchen area.  Yay!

When we first started looking at the options, I fell in love with these totally splurgy cabinets from Viola Park.  To me they seem really expensive, although they're right in the middle between budget cabinets and custom ones (which are really crazy expensive).  The walnut version makes me drool:

Aren't they pretty?  I love this look.  I just love it.  The oak is nice too:

But using them would have meant an extra $5k, which, I agree, can't be justified.  A single walnut drawer unit from Viola Park is something like $1400, whereas the same unit from Ikea is about $270.  Yikes.

So we're going with Ikea, because they sell some very nice designs at a really reasonable price.  Here are the sleek Nexus brown cabinets we chose:

  

The cabinets will be installed on Monday, but the countertops will take several more weeks.  I'll post the photos when it's all done!