Dear Polar Princess, I am happy to read of your recent survivorship and a getting new lease on life. I think your oak cabinets look very well made and can be a star with some new accessories. Oak is a timeless, beautiful wood. Here are the changes I would try for minimal cost: 1) As has been mentioned numerous times: remove the stenciling & ivy to freshen the look. 2) If you can easily remove the light bridge over the sink and add molding to the top of the 2 cabinets where it connected, that will also modernize the look, as previous poster suggested, for not much money. 3) Backsplash: Provide Maximum sizzle and splash, which will transform the kitchen with a shimmering glass tile mosaic. See link below as example. Your area is not big, so you could pull this off for only $200 to $250 in materials. 4) Definitely bring in the brown leather bar stools you like or even something very modern in style as a contrast. 5) Counter tops: white laminate is not necessarily bad. In fact, if you add a shimmering glass backsplash that is a nice counterpoint to the white counters, you may find they are now more pleasing to you, without going to the expense of adding granite. You already know how easy to maintain your laminate counters are. You might jazz them up with some interesting place mats or update your centerpiece to be more in keeping with the brown leather & mosaics. 6) Window valence: maybe replace the lace look with something more tailored to complement the new backsplash and stools. 7) Wall paint: See how the backsplash changes the look and decide if you want to add wall color or not. 8) If you still yearn for SS appliances, check into changing out the front panels of the frig and dishwasher with SS. Don't think that is possible with the stove. I would really keep the bisque because they will look nice with the new backsplash as well. The link is from a larger website with many different choices of mosaic color combinations. The featured one is Anima because I think it would complement your while/bisque and oak and brown leather. Also check out several of the Spectralight (with and without El Dorado), Shimmerfly (one is Honey Pearl)and others which might complement your adjacent room colors. Good luck with all your decisions. We celebrate that you are here to make them! Anna Lee F Here is a link that might be useful: Glass tile backsplash

Change out you siding with hardi board. Add a porch roof like the pic.posted that partically follows the roof line to camo. the fact that the roof is wider on one side. Starting at the new porch roof edge add a wide trim board that goes across to the other wall., where the main roof meets the side wall and use hardi shingles above in a different color than the body of the house. Consider nicer window upstairs. I cann,t see the total slope of your yard put it looks like you have enough slope to put in a rock retaining wall. Add a few semi large focal rocks above and some low growing evergreens and a nice stone walk way and multch . Add something like river rock and easy care plants down in front of the rock retaining wall and you probly have the nicest house on your block and it would all be easy upkeep if you use the right plants and multch.If your able to do it your self all that should be less than 3000. We did alot of the same stuff with ours this last year and consider it a learning exp. as well as sweat eguity.

I'm not an architect or a designer ....just a lowly poster but something about the stone on the bottom and the weightiness. I could be totally off. Maybe one of the architects here or designers will weigh in on the columns. i chose my stone first. Then I chose my siding color to complement the stone. But, I had no choice as we had to have the stone months before the house project started. I would have done it the same way ...stone first.

Since repainting is not in the budget, work with what you can. The shutters would be better not there, or if you want to keep them, white. So frustrating when colors don’t end up the way you thought/planned-more so when it’s such a large/expensive area, too. I very much want to kick those shrubs, so really hope you take them out. Someone I’m quite sure can come up with some pretty plants/flowers to put there instead. Yellow is my favorite color, and I like the color of the door, but I do agree about changing it to orange. Patricia‘s MCM idea is lovely, if you can swing the wood. As far as repainting the entire house again bc you’re selling..I like blue, but if I bought it, I would probably repaint anyway, unless it was specifically what I wanted—let the buyers down the road decide. So I think it a wise thing to not mess with repainting again.