Rip out soffits, light fixture, and maybe island. Paint cabinets, add crown molding and new pantry cabinet next to fridge as well as side panels and a deep overhead cabinet for fridge. Maybe reuse the wall cabinet over desk and desk drawer to make island bigger (use wall cabinet as open bookcase?)? It needs to have more "something" to make it work better. More cabinets, different color, different countertop....something. Put in some recessed (or track) lighting to wash down the front of your wall cabinets and put in under cabinet lighting for the work areas. A chandelier over the reconfigured island.

Paint walls and finish off with a nice granite countertop, sink, faucet, and new pulls. Budget is gonna be tight for this if you have to pay to demo and drywall, electrical, etc.

If you decide to keep your soffits, and are planning to paint your cabinets, you can make them 'look' like an extension of the cabinets by adding a crown moulding at the ceiling, and some other moulding between cabinet and soffit, and then painting the soffits to match the new cabinet color.

I would definitely replace the boxed light fixture, because it dates the space.

I agree with most of what Live Wire Oak said. If I were you the first thing I'd do is get rid of the ceiling light box.

You have some very nice new appliances. Giving the fridge a built-in look will achieve a lot. I would carefully take the cabinets and the desk around the fridge off the wall. Then I would build an extension for the boxes which fit between the wall and the cabinets. It should be whatever depth is required so that when the cabinets were mounted on the extension the cabinet doors would end up flush with fridge door. Use sheets of plywood that is primed and painted to match your new cabinet colour as cover panels to smooth everything out and hide seams.

It will look like a solid unit.

Buy four "Island Legs" from http://www.outwater.com. Get four pieces of wood that are equal to the lengths of the two sides of the island, less the width of the legs. Paint the upper wall cabinets, the island cabinets, the legs and the wood pieces a warm off-white/cream colour.

Attach two of the legs to the side of the island that faces us in the photograph. Space that with one of the pieces of wood. Using the other pieces of wood and the remaing legs, assemble a table base that is the same size as the existing island, and is attached to the island on the short side that faces us in the phtograph. You are doubling the size of the island and leaving the new part of it open underneath for comfortable seating.

Remove the countertop from the existing island.

Determine what countertops your budget will cover. Laminate - granite - butcher block or a combination of these. You can do the island and the perimeter in two different materials. The island in granite with laminte perimaeter perhaps ? Wooden island with granite perimeter ?

A countertop that is the same tone or darker than the floor will look good. Avoid making everything the same honey-blond colour.

Before you replace the countertops, paint the permiter base cabinets a nice dark espresso or even a distressed black.

Use a jigsaw to cut out the center panel of your angled upper cabinet door. Sand the opening smooth and mount a piece of glass or mirror or some metal mesh or chicken wire there for visual interest.

Finally - put up crown moulding. This is incredibly important. The details make the room, they are far more important than expensive cabinetry or the lastest most costly professional whatchamacallit. As you can afford it, start investing in a few corbels, appliques, etc.

If you can - put in big, high (8" or 10") baseboards too.

Good Luck !!

If I had those soffits, I would do precisely as alaskangirl suggested and paint them to match the cabinet color and install a large crown at the top (also painted the same color). It will make your cabinets look larger and will give the room a little "oomph." :o) You could also face them with luan or beadboard (if you don't think that's too country-ish) so they look like wood rather than drywall when painted.

I would also keep the island, maybe adding beadboard or applied moulding "panels," but now that you have the counter-depth fridge, maybe you could also extend the new island top 15" for seating and put in some cool turned legs for supports - something that would make it look like more of a focal point. If the budget allows, I think I would order some paint grade cabinet doors for your uppers that have the same squared-off design as your lower doors (and also your nice interior doors) because the arches are a little dated. I would also definitely square off the entry to the dining room and would probably add some more substantial moulding at least there. If you're going to paint it anyway, MDF is super cheap and would make the trim look more significant. I know you're already planning to set free the UFO that is your light fixture, and that will help a ton. ;o) (I have a similar horror handing in my kitchen until it heads to the dump in a couple weeks!)

I would order a standard 4" backsplash in the countertop material and save the snazzy backsplash for down the road so I could spend the 10K on other things now.

Are you leaning toward a particular paint color for your cabs? I think you have a great space to work with!

Good suggestions! Keep them coming!

I like the idea of making the soffits look like they're part of the cabinetry by adding molding. I think I saw Candace Olson do this to a kitchen. I was thinking of painting the cabinets cream. I am scared to paint them dark for some reason.....but would probably be easier/more forgiving.

I have thought about adding on an open bookcase to the end of the island. It needs to be beefed up, that's for sure. I do not think I want to extend it more than a foot or two in length, because we do have a kitchen table in there, and it'd block the path to the sliding door.

If the soffits over the refrigerator stays (which I believe they will), what would you do with the cabinetry and enclosing the refrigerator?

stretchad - Your flooring looks beautiful! Can you tell me about it? Solid wood or engineered? Species of wood & color? Installation: Floating, glued down,or nailed?

Hmmm - I say take out all the cabs by the fridge, center it in the wall and put in two pantry cabs on either side to build it in and take it out of the entryway. If matching the doors for a fridge top cab would be too hard, make open shelving and get some cool baskets, or display serving pieces, booze, etc.

Hi Strechad,

I have a similar layout and era to you. I wish I had a before picture, but here is the after. My husband gave me a $5000 budget and I came pretty close--about $5500 with appliances. I did most of the work myself, I am pretty handy but certainly am no expert. I had the late 80's yellowed oak cabinets nad the pretty, pretty box light like you. The light was surprisingly easy to take down but you do need two people because it is HEAVY and very awkward, but it really doesnt leave much of a mark on your ceiling amazingly enough! I extended the island and added beadboard then painted it a different color. I got new cabinet doors and hardware. Also I shopped around and got a great price on granite and an undermount sink and got a faucet on Ebay. I made my motto "shop often, buy seldom". It was a lot of hard work but I love it and I am crazy cheap!

Best bang for the buck - DIY + these materials
1. Refinish floor with waterlox
2. cabs + island from IKEA (no contest here)
3. hardware - IKEA
4. sink - ebay
5. faucet - ebay
6. counters - prefab granite in standard lengths. buy the granite first then design the cab runs based on that
7. if recessed lighting is too much work, get some nice track lighting online
8. leave the backsplash for last depending on left over money. you can get glass/marble etc on ebay.
9. keep the appliances

10. work the soffits into the cabs (if they cannot be removed)

Great inspiration photos, Mama. (Esp. note how (the dreaded) white appliances really work in the second photo, the gray kitchen!)

But, all three of those kitchens have at least 9' ceilings plus other strong vertical elements. IMO, the taller ceilings are a critical element of being able to successfully design around (or with) soffits.

Anyway, back to OP's kitchen. This is what I would do, with a lot of DIY, and with a 10k budget:

1. Light Box--gone.

2. Soffits--gone.

3. Demolish pantry & move door in the end wall of the kitchen to the right. (Closet in the adjacent room, behind the pantry? What is that room behind the kitchen?)

4. Tweak the stove area. Remove the stove and move the cabs that are currently on the right of the stove to the left, connecting them to the corner cabinets. Reinstall stove & use upper cabs from the desk area & base cabs from the island to extend the run on the right side of the stove.

5. Rebuild pantry as a shallow step-in pantry.

6. Crown moulding on cabinets

7. Accent lighting on top of cabinets.

8. Wrap refrigerator with new tall cabinets.

9. Use flooring salvaged from existing pantry to patch floors (if I didn't have some extra laying around and can't match the flooring with new.)

10. Put the room behind the kitchen back together (from the mess made by moving door & removing closet.)

11. Under cabinet lighting.

Inexpensive solutions to be upgraded, or not, later:

12. Pre-fabbed laminate countertops from Home Depot.

13. Ceiling light fixtures.

14. Industrial workbench w/ BB top for a new island, repurposed at a later date to the garage or basement for it's original intended use.

15. New hardware for cabinets.

Here is a link that might be useful: Work Bench

Congrats on your new home!! how exciting - I remember the previuos thread

Painting is cheap if you diy and have time - So, if your cabs are in good condition I would paint them. - I'd get pricing on new doors just to see if that may pay off

10k is not bad considering you have all new appliances!

- Remove light fixture patch repair ceiling
- remove soffits
- remove railing into FR - if you feel the necessity to have some type of barrier btwn 2 - build 2 pony walls -*** If you can really squeeze your budget or do later run hw into the FR
- I'm wondering about removing the island (it looks tight there fr. clearance perspective and I personally feel like for me it would be more in the way) and making a penninsula at the left of sink run (by sliding doors)
-? Flooring looks in good shape - does it need refinishing?
- Remove desk - which is a catch all spot w/no defined function -perhaps have a narrow depth pantry there - you could do hutch type and have upper sitting on a counter - that would give you fridge landing space

Below is link fr. Decorating forum fr. a handy home owner who installed trim on back of her island - unbelievable transformation - will give you idea for island/penninsula/end of cab run - Really a big bang for just a few bucks!

new stone counters will really bring you totally out of the 80's - I would venture given size that I see you could find something nice for 2-3k installed - W/some real bargain hunting i'm certain you can do that

Not sure about pantry, doors etc as I don't have great sense of that space

new hardware, sink faucet and some window treatments

Again, congrats & good luck

Here is a link that might be useful: Trim arounc island

Saw this on a design show recently... Use stainless laminate on your dishwasher -assuming you don't want to replace it. Just google that and you'll find lots of choices.

Personally I'm not a fan of islands, so what I would do is move the island cabs over to the left and fill in the space by the door, making it a penninsula. Extend the depth with a new wider counter and add bookshelves on the outer side facing the viewer.

We did this DIY with 2 or 3 base cabinets, and I find that corner space to be THE most often used workspace in the whole kitchen. (We remedied the corner space question by putting a prep sink in that corner; you could also do a door facing outwards on the bookshelf side.) Alternately, this could be a breakfast bar.

To follow up on Bestyear's suggestion: Frigo Design makes nice cover panels in just about any color or metal for all models of fridge & dishwasher.

I like all the ideas posted above and especially like the idea of centering the fridge on that wall and putting pantry cabinets around it. Painting the cabinets would certainly give you a new look. There are lots of colors to use, not just cream!!! (although cream is what I did too!) The wood floors look like they are in very good condition, so that will save you money.

I did a budget reno of my kitchen and spent about $6,000 or so. Everything was DIY except for installing the granite. My budget included the purchase of a new range and I kept all the other appliances and my existing backsplash from a reno done 5 years ago.

I added different trims (raised boxes on top of 2 upper cabinets, crown moldings, boxed moldings on the end runs, cabinet feet and baseboard molding on the desk) to customize our stock cabinets.

I would keep your island. My kitchen is very similar to yours and I have the same type of island and use it all the time. It doesn't get in our way, nor does it seem like our walkways are too narrow. We added an eating bar at the far end during the reno 5 years ago.

I really think you can stay on budget if you try to do as much of the work yourself. (especially demo stuff - you can rip out and tear down stuff yourself.) We saved around $600 by demoing our old counter tops and I did the new countertop leveling myself for the granite installers.

Below is a link to my new kitchen and there's also an album of the different stages of the work I did along the way.

Soooomanyboys - I love your kitchen transformation!!! I really like the green island too and the red accent wall.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://s475.photobucket.com/albums/rr116/downsymom/Final%20Kitchen%20Facelift/

If you really want painted cabinets, go that route, but I think you could also get away with new (oak) doors stained to match the existing cabinets. (It's not too hard to match the stain - get a scrap of oak and a few stains that look like the cabs. Test out, mix them together if need be until that scrap matches the cabs and voila!) With some new hardware as well, it wouldn't have to look "country" at all.

Beyond that, obviously the light fixture needs to go - maybe some recessed or even track lights along with a pendant (or two, depending on size) above the island.

Then, I'd make the fridge look a bit more "built in" (maybe with new cabs ordered at the same time as the doors, also unfinished).

Finally, a fresh coat of paint and new countertops (with new sink/faucet if you'd like, but not necessary) would complete the transformation. (And for countertops, if you've saved everywhere else, you can splurge for something nice - soapstone, granite, etc. If you're getting closer to budget, do laminate with keeping the existing sink/faucet and replace down the road if you'd like.)

Good luck!

Because the room is so wide, I think the biggest bang for the buck might be to locate the cooktop on a deeper island, with decorative range hood above. Wrapping new counter top around corner where range is now would provide a lot more work surface. Then add oven/MW built-in cabinetry next to frig, at same depth (or less deep, if you plan on new frig).

This would chew thru' your budget, but you could still DIY many of the good ideas already proposed, such as soffit removal and added crown moulding to cabinets. Looks like there are a number of doorways in the room -- is there any possibility of closing one off, e.g. the one to right of the range?

sketch of above idea:
{{!gwi}}

A couple big considerations: often soffits are more functional than decorative - they often hide house systems such as plumbing and electrical. If you decide to remove them, you might have to relocate those systems.

If you keep the soffits, the only problem I see is trying to make the area above the fridge look better. I would suggest building a custom bookcase to fill in/enclose the area above the fridge and soffit. I would build it up to the ceiling, and the depth of the fridge, and then attach vertical wood panels to the side of it to make the fridge look completely built in. I would tie in the bookcase with the crown moulding on the adjacent soffit, paint the whole thing, and it it should look awesome.

Also, do your floors extend beneath your cabinets, because if they don't, I would suggest leaving your cabinetry in it's existing location. The only possible change I would make is to replace the built in desk with some base cabinets if you don't like the desk.

I actually like the island, as long as it isn't acting as a barrier as you cross the room to your fridge. I would actually lengthen it towards the dining area a foot by putting in corbels and a new longer contertop, creating a space for a stool and giving your more prep/buffet space.

Are you planning to paint all your oak trim/doors in the house? I have already done one 80's house like yours and am in the process of doing another. :) LOTS of work, but the transformation is worth it. ( I keep telling myself!)

Oh, and I would definitely lose the railing towards the family room. I can't tell if there is a drop-off there, so if you need something there for safety, I would build either some small half walls and/or shallow bookcases.

Should've look at your photos first -- I see you have nice new appliances. As Gilda Radner used to say, 'never mind'.

mamadada... do you know if the first inspiration pic you posted in this thread is QS Oak? I really like the wood tone.

First off, have you used it enough to know it just needs a facelift and not a major redo? Don't do anything to pretty it up before you're sure you can live with the room's bones!

remodelfla,
'tis... below is a link to where I got that photo from. I too love QS oak.

Here is a link that might be useful: oak cabs

thanks everyone for the suggestions!

We have lived here since May, and have been pondering the kitchen ever since we had our offer accepted on the house. I think that I essentially like the room's layout to answer fori's question. The thing I'd like is a bit more counter space. I have considered getting rid of the island and putting in a peninsula, but I have a couple concerns at doing this, first and foremost, not totally sure whether the flooring runs under the island. I'm not at all interested in redoing the floors just to move an island. Second, and most importantly, but the cabinets, drawers and counter space on the end of the island closest to the stove & MW get used a TON because the counters, drawers and base cabinet storage is very limited directly to the right and left of the stove.

Some folks asked about the room beyond the stove, through the door...it's our laundry/mud room + 4th bedroom and a bathroom and connects the house to the garage. Only place in which to access these rooms is through that door. So unfortunately it can't be blocked off. All the other doors are necessities too. One is to the DR, other to our front living room, the other to the basement.

Im definitely toying with the idea of removing those goofy banisters between the kitchen and family room. I need to wait until I'm ready to extend the flooring into the family room though because of the piece that the spindles attach to on the floor.

Regarding removing the soffits, I don't believe there's anything in the soffits above the refrigerator area, however I do believe that there's plumbing in the soffits above the main run of cabinets...our bathroom is directly above there and have heard water sounds running through the pipes (which I believe hide in the soffit). So, I'm thinking if I paint, the soffits will get crown molding...

Thanks again for all the suggestions!!

Mamadadapaige, do you know anything about the second picture you posted, the one with the blue/gray cabinets? I love this kitchen and I'm wondering what color the cabinets are -- I love it!

Sorry to hijack!

egganddart,
another pic off of Crown Point's website. I just love their gallery photos. I think it is Milk Paint, but follow the link below for more info.

Here is a link that might be useful: crown point

Hi-
I did not read through all the responses, but just wanted to say that we did the kitchen reno in our old house for much less than $10k (it was several years ago). That included a new range, hood and MW, new cabinets, new counter, floor refinishing. We DIYed a lot, (including being the GC) but did end up hiring a builder to remove a small area of bearing wall and add a beam, and build custom shelving and refrigerator surround. Also professional floor re-finishing with the rest of the house.

We used IKEA cabinets and we were extremely pleased with them. I highly recommend them. They are very well-designed, plus they don't off-gas formaldehyde and other toxins like cheap home-store cabinetry. We LOVED all the great pull-outs, pantry units, etc.

We used a remnant of honed granite for the small peninsula and white laminate with a beautiful maple edge (that we made ourselves) for the rest of the counters. If I were to do it over, I would also have opened up the wall into the DR, but it was pretty great the way it was.

Pics:

IF you keep the soffit, in addition to crown at the ceiling, add a piece of picture molding a few inches below the crown, paint the crown, wall between and picture molding al the same and it will look a lot more substantial. Example:

Here is a link that might be useful: picture mold and crown