Your idea of painting your kitchen cabinets red sounds stunning.
The color you choose to go with the red does depend on how large your room is, and how you want your room to feel.
Dark and bright colors, and warm colors (which includes oranges and all red tones) will make a room feel smaller, but also warmer and cosier.
Light colors and cool colors (this is all colors with a blue-ish tone) will make your room feel larger, and give it a cooler and fresher feel.
If you don't want to use white, but still want a neutral color on the walls, you can choose from all creams, beiges, taupes, greys, browns and even black.
Green is the complementary color to red. This means it is opposite it on the color wheel. This will give a very dramatic effect when used with red. It tends to be a good idea not to use a plain bright green against a bright red - instead the best effects are achieved with soft, muted greens and pale greens. Also look out for turquoises and teal shades which may well look good.
You could go for 'harmonious' schemes instead. This means using colors next to red on the color wheel.
You could mix with all kinds of oranges, terracotta, rust, right through to sand and stone colors. This will give a warmer feel - fiery and exotic if you use brighter tones, or more earthy and mellow if you use muted tones.
Or, you could try mixing with berry tones - these are tones of red with blue and purpley tones added. Colors like burgundy, damson etc. Again this will give a warmer, cosy feel to the room.
The important thing to remember with red is not to try to mix orangey-reds with bluey-reds (although this can succeed if you include the primary red in the scheme).
I hope that all this has given you some good ideas for your kitchen.
