I highly recommend figuring out the ENTIRE look of the kitchen before you touch this functional floor. I know you are feeling fidgety about changing 'something' in the kitchen but haven't decided on what or where or how...so the flooring seems the easiest thing to 'change. Remember: floors are done LAST. Which means your kitchen refresh *should go FIRST. You haven't decided on the 'type' of white cabinets. Which means you do NOT want to change the floors...because it could lead you into a 'colour trap'. If you switch them out today...what happens tomorrow when you find the PERFECT colour for the cabinets (because it goes PERFECTLY with your favourite counters and the backsplash you want) CLASHES with the tones in your floor? Oh dear. Now you have to continue searching OR remove the floors and do them again. Sigh...what a waste of time. Please take 2 weeks to plan your kitchen colour scheme. The COLOURS are what binds a space together. The materials are of little consequence (don't bash me...it's true) but the COLOURS are SUPER important. I would suggest you do some research into the cabinet finishes available in your area. Get a colour swatch from the painters (or purchase a finished drawer face, etc). Now take that shopping to find options for counter tops AND flooring. Pick out 2-3 counters that would work for you (and your cabinets). Purchase slices of the stones for future reference. Now go tile shopping. You will have all three samples with you in a basket or a bag. You will pick up 2-3 FLOOR tile samples that will work with your choices. Purchase the samples if you have to. Then purchase 2-3 backsplash samples as well. Excellent. Take them home and look at ALL of them in your lighting. Move them around during the day. You want to see all samples in all 5 lighting situations. Each time the light changes, one of your samples will show it's ugly side (maybe too pink...maybe too yellow, or too blue, or too green). Excellent! Put it in a drawer and keep looking at the samples. Keep kicking samples to the curb. Eventually you will be down to 2 floor options and two counter top options and maybe 1 backsplash option. Exactly where you want to be! Now you go ahead and figure out WHICH floor you can purchase RIGHT NOW rather than waiting. The one you purchase is what drives the counters and the backsplash. Whew! Good work. In two weeks you have FINALIZED your kitchen refresh without doing a darn thing. Remember: floors go in LAST.

Realistically you'll want to change the flooring, lighting, appliances, layout and cabinets. I'd draw a scale plan of your space including the whole floor. That way you can evaluate what you can get for a major remodel. . . .At least you don't have top door designs. Painting correctly to last is a time and labor intensive project. So it would be useful to see just what that would accomplish.

LilDesignWorks thanks for the suggestions! I’m not sure I’m crazy about the black/white combo for a floor covering over our tile, but I’ll play around with it. I’m going to try reorganizing our cabinets so they can fit more and less ends up on top, and hide other things with baskets. The cabinets are actually not “sealed” in the traditional way, they feel like bare wood and we were instructed by the previous owner to use an oil like boiled linseed to maintain them. I’ll definitely start with the walls, window treatments, pulls, lighting, clutter, and floor coverings and see where to go from there. Thanks for the tips on whites too. We have White Dove on our exterior trim and there it reads very slightly yellow or off-white to me. I want to coordinate with the cabinets and floor without making things look more yellow/beige.

Great transformation! Love the classic subway backsplash. Hopefully, everyone is over the trend of small, multicolored tile in wild patterns.