Well, here's how things have been trying to move along.
The painter isn't liking the Behr paint any more than I am - the color is great, but the paint is a "bear" to work with. The sprayed doors didn't turn out much better than using a foam roller, so he's going to sand them back down and re-spray them using Sherwin-Williams paint instead of Behr.
For the bottom door guide, there seem to be pretty much 3 colors to choose from - glaring bright white, tan, or a darker reddish-brown. They're all made from a nylon plastic, so then I got to thinking....well hey, I've got a 3D printer, and nylon filament exists, and in a red color, so why not make my own? I've got a spool of red nylon filament ordered and will try making my own floor guide to see how well it blends with the doors.
The final tape selection for silver striping will be the expensive ABS tape. Everything else is too thin and wall texture shows through. The double-sided "permanent" tape has arrived so I'll be testing that out tonight to see if it holds the tape to the wall. If not, then I'll need to work out a different approach using something like Liquid Nails, Power Grab, Gorilla Glue, etc. I'm also going to experiment on a scrap piece with toning down the shine using fine steel wool (thanks for that suggestion). If I like how it looks then I'll treat all the tape prior to attaching.
Gray paint hasn't been sticking well to the melamine shelf boards - well, technically it sticks to the Gripper primer just fine, it's the primer that peels away like vinyl shelving paper. I had sanded the smaller shelves prior to painting and the paint is holding just fine, so I took my heat gun to the remaining shelves and stripped away the coating. I'm sure the primer and paint will bond better to bare wood. (Yes, I actually typed "bare wood" ....haha) Unfortunately the big long shelf has a different baked-on enamel coating that is impervious to the heat gun and will need sanding off. (It's also very resistant to 60-grit paper, so maybe it doesn't need to come off completely - just rough it up so the primer bonds better.)
Hopefully there will be good photos to show towards the weekend.