Honey Oak .. Everywhere

Our house has come so far from the first day we walked through the front door. All the damage to the drywall (150+ sledgehammer holes throughout) are gone. The old smelly carpets have been replaced. The front door which used to be gray and blue flat-nasty paint, is gorgeous in red. The broken storm door has been replaced with a charming 'granny slammer' screen door. The house is a home and full of character now.

And full of Honey Oak.

It's everywhere.

When we first got the house, I worked hard at choosing paint colors around the honey oak. Floors, doors, trim, the whole kitchen cabinetry, everything...is honey oak. I know I'm supposed to be thankful for all this "expensive hardwood" but ...I'm sorry. After almost a year, I'm sooo tired of it. In this case, less would've been more. It's E V E R Y W H E R E !!! I think if it were just the floors, I could deal with it. But filling a house with primitives and antiques and colonial flavor ...well, it just doesn't "work." The honey oak just sticks out like a sore thumb.

I know there are two solutions, at least. One, is to strip everything and re-stain. Ummm, as much as I hate the honey oak, 2800 sq ft of stripping and restaining doors and trim doesn't sound at all doable. Not in this lifetime. Me the impatient, stay at home mom of three crazy kids and two huge dogs and a husband who doesn't like to paint or stain anything since it can't be done with a remote control. (ha). The other solution, is to paint. Now, normal professionals would say, it's ok to paint if you sand and prime and sand and clean and THEN apply two good coats of good paint. However, even THAT sounds daunting. That is a lot of work which takes a lot of time. Any of you who know me, know that I am not a lazy person. But there are limits!! Even if I were to do the kitchen cabinets, everything I read tells me to remove all the hardware and the doors and drawers and about at that time, my eyes are glazing over and I'm looking for a hole to crawl into.

Up in the master bath, I resisted all the good advice, took a dry brush and black paint, pulled the drawers out just a little and opened the cupboard doors, and painted. Light wispy strokes of black paint. Guess what? With NO prep work, no taping, no sanding, no priming, the paint looks distressed and beautiful, it dried fine, doesn't stick or scratch, and it's done! No more modern shiny cherry. It's now distressed black. Doesn't that sound like if I were to do the same thing to the oak trim and doors around here, that the same result would happen??? Or am I just dreaming?

My mother would kill me and my husband would not be happy and would roll his eyes so far back in his head that he might lose vision all together. BUT....I am SO tempted to at LEAST attempt this method on the back of a closet door, or something. Somewhere where it wouldn't be too noticeable if I screwed it all up....Hmmmm. I even have honey oak trim on the INSIDE of my bedroom closet door!! Ugh.

OK I need some serious advice and votes here. Before you comment, take into consideration that I am impatient and do not like to prep with multi-layers of primer, etc, and I'm on a severe (read: zero) budget.

Thank you!

This is the kitchen when we first saw the house: all honey oak.

This is the kitchen (pardon the mess) with all the primitive decor in it. Still see all the honey oak???