Here are the overview pics:

I like your cabinets. I would definitely not be refacing them. For a rustic look I would:

Strip the cabinets and stain them darker - a black walnut colour.

Reinforce them if necessary so that they can carry a granite or silestone counter. Find a nice medium-to-dark green granite or quartz or marble that you like.

Do a flagstone (actual stones cut into thin sheets in irregular shapes)floor.

Replace the cabinet moulding. Put on big crown, add a nice ornate light strip. Lots of simple corbels. Get rid of the valance over the sink.

Put in an apron front sink.

Build the fridge in by pulling the existing cabinets forward and adding side panels.

Get oil-rubbed bronze faucets and old looking cup-shaped pulls.

Get a nice old chandelier for the centre of the room - not too ornate. Install pot-lighting.

Get rid of the wall-paper - paint the walls a nice butter-cream colour.

Good luck !

So pretty bad, but most of us have been there. No great ideas on layout but re-facing is probably not the way to go, the layout isn't good and it sounds like the quality of the boxes isn't that great either - so you are not a candidate for re-facing.

Before you start working with your carpenter take some measurements and go get some cabinet quotes to get some ideas and prices. In terms of the wood a lot of companies are doing almost opaque colour glazing (Kraftmaid for one - see their moss or wedgewood - they look more like colour impregnated stains than glazes to me but regardless the effect is nice) that would give you wood grain and colour so you wouldn't have to worry about matching the exisiting wood. For layout help folks here will probably need a scaled graph paper layout drawing. The basic layout makes me think you won't require custom cabs not sure what your arrangement with the carpenter is but he may be just as happy to install already built cabinetry anyway. You have lots of room to improve without needing to break the bank so I wouldn't get carried away with premium materials if the market can't support them. Focus on your wish list and see where your budget can take you (do set a budget after you have done some research).

You're cabs really aren't bad and with some paint could look great. I'd be more concerned with the overall layout. Though we dont' have a full view of your kitchen, it looks as if the fuctionality of it can be improved.

We would be more able to talk about layout with a simple floor plan of your current kitchen. If you don't speak computers, draw one and take a nice closeup photo of it. Labeling the door and room openings so we knew what was behind them would be good.

It looks like you have 5 feet or more between the sides of the galley? You can certainly do 30" deep countertops on both sides.

So, maybe I would ... a bit hard to know for sure without measurements - move the ref to the opposite end of that cabinet run and move the pantry (roughly) to where the ref used to be. Then I'd move the oven to where the pantry used was and consider putting the oven undercounter to increase the available counterspace. Build a nice looking baking/mixer/micro hutch in place of the whole oven/desk thing.

You might consider ditching the ov/cooktop in favor of a range or doing an advantium or other speed oven in place of a plain micro. If you retain the wall oven, you might get a built-in kit and mount the micro or speed oven in with the other oven.

Before deciding, I'd think about how I cook. One of the more fun and crazy experiments is to dust the floor with flour, cook a meal, and see what you walk to and how often. Another is to video yourself using your kitchen. This will tell you what want you might want to have together.

The only other suggestion I have is about the junk collector desk. Try blocking it today with a big piece of cardboard and find out where that junk could go.

Some people use a standing desk with a lift-up lid to capture crud. Some people put the junk behind doors or put a charging station in a drawer or a door cabinet on the wall. Where will the telephone go? How will you take messages? Where will the calendar be? Sometimes, a "message center" answers this need. Sometimes, all that stuff can find a new home in a free standing desk or in another room.

I agree that a floorplan would be helpful. There is actually plenty of room in there for a nice kitchen.

I think the layout could be much improved, so I vote for new cabinetry. If you are not in a granite or solid surface neighborhood, I would do without it unless you really want them. If you are maintaining some of the 70s feel, laminate would probably be more appropriate.

I am not a huge fan of vaulted ceilings but I think it will work with the rustic look. It looks like you have popcorn ceilings. I would drywall over the surface of that and keep the beams. This may also help for getting some better lighting in there.

Definately do new cabinetry. The layout doesn't work for you, and they can't support stone. It would be money wasted to try to salvage what's there under those circumstances. Recycle them to a basement or garage instead and start over.

I agree about putting the fridge and the wall oven or pantry together. An actual layout would help to determine optimal placement. You really don't need to "match" the wood to the existing trim or floor. In fact, it looks much better if you DON'T! You coordinate the basic tones so that the color tones complement each other, and don't worry about matching. If you want a rustic look, a hickory or knotty alder would be a nice wood to take a look at. THey're pretty much at the opposite ends of the hardness scale, so if you anticipate that the cabinets will get a lot of hard wear, hickory is the way to go.

Can you do any structural changes? I'm thinking of two things in particular. One is to shorten the window for a U kitchen. Then move the doorway between the cooktop and ovens to give you more continuous counter space.

When you say that you want to stay with the same finish to match the other wood and molding, do you mean that you want to keep the cabinets the same as the wainscotting? Or will the wainscotting be pulled out? The beams are a different finish from the cabinets and wainscotting currently, at least as it appears in the photos.

If you remove the wainscotting, you could leave just a chair rail and paint it, maybe in a contrasting color (typically white trim on a colored wall), if you change the cabinet finish and don't want two different wood finishes. Then paint the lower part of the wall below the chair rail. I'm presuming that the wainscotting continues into the other room, in which case you may want to leave it or at least the chair rail.

If you don't want to remove the wainscotting and want the cabinets to match, you could simply put in glass-front doors to lighten up the room.

If you *don't* move the fridge to the far end of the same wall, you could put in a half-wall with cabinets (maybe a lazy Susan corner) or a breakfast bar counter to make the kitchen a bit more cozy and set it off from the other room.

If you *do* move the fridge and add cabinets along that window wall, you could maybe put a bench under the long window (hard to tell how long it is with the blind covering it, does the blind stop at the windowsill or extend past it?). If the window sill is really as low as the blind in the photo, a bench would have to cover the lower portion of the window, which might not work well, although you could build in a nice wooden back. Or would that restrict your access to the window too much?

Thanks so much for all the ideas. I will definitely do a drawing.
Yes we're painting the paneling under the wainscoating. We want the frames and baseboards to remain, no paint. You've helped me to figure out what bugs me the most -- the endless wood cabinets. If we add even more, which is what the plan is seeming to be going toward -- it will be a LOT of wood, and overwhelming. But that is my DH's one request - stained not painted cabinets.
Most of the rest of the house, all around the kitchen is stained wood framing and baseboards, and no, we aren't painting it, but will have it refreshed. I do like stained framing.
The window you see is as long as the blind. I would like to keep that window there, for letting light in. As much as I hate a galley kitchen, if we can change what we can to make it more functional and beautiful, then I can live with it. Just too bad we can't have an island. The right side of the kitchen has the DR on the other side, so no chance of any more windows being added.
A great idea would be to use the area where the long window is, putting the cooktop there, and then with just wall on the other side, we could have an island. But, that might be too much work/expense.
It would be pretty easy to restain the wainscoating and framework in the kitchen to match the beams.
So yes, I'll get that drawing together. You people are very smart! (At first seeing all the fabulous kitchens here I was very intimidated to post my little kitchen).

Could you close up the doorway (I'm assuming that door goes into the DR) and create a different opening into the DR? That might allow you to create a peninsula. I also assume the kitchen eating area is at the bottom of the kithcen. Do you use both areas for eating?

live_wire handles Kraftmaid she may be able to offer some feedback on the colour glazes (maybe too trendy but I still think they look good). Personally I like wood grain (up to about oak, for me pine, alder and hickory are too much) but I don't generally like the tones of stained wood. Maybe you could mix in some glazed or painted cabinetry elements to break up your wood cabinetry - more common with contrasting islands these days but can be done in a galley, "L" or "U" as well.

This is the same kitchen with the cabinets stained or painted a deep espresso brown, and the doors on the sink side routed out and the centers replaced with glass. I also added a tumbled marble backsplash and removed the paneling on the walls. Makes a world of difference for not a whole lot of money.

LOVE blondelle's Photoshop work! What a change!

Take that humonguous microwave off the counter and move it to the other side where the wall oven is. That desk is a real mess-catcher - can you turn that area into a convenient breakfast and/or coffee bar where the MW will seem almost built-in? Maybe refrig drawers instead of a desk could give you a whole new functional area there.

For a new countertop look at a reasonable price, why not granite tile? Easy DIY and it may be possible to even do it over your current countertop.

If you don't have enough workspace near the stove, ask your carpenter if it's possible to modify one of the cabs on the far left or far right-hand side to have a pull-out kitchen cart with a heatproof top, maybe one or two storage shelves on the bottom. If it's doable, he can make a fake front with the original cab door and drawer so when you roll it back inside after you're done using it, it'll look like it was always a part of the kitchen. Workspace doesn't always need to be a deep/wide space, sometimes just having something big enough to hold a single pot off the burner can make all the difference.

Good luck! I love galley kitchens, when properly done they're actually quite efficient.

OMG, blondelle!! Thank you so much for the photoshop!! Gosh I wish I knew how to do that. I would play all day. I love the glass doors and the deeper color for the cabinets. This brings the level of sophistication up a great deal.

RE closing the opening to the DR: at the bottom of the kitchen on the fridge side is a bay window/breakfast area and down from the wall oven side is a large opening to the LR. There is a 5 ft opening between the LR and DR. If necessary we could close that opening off.

I would think you would want to maintain an opening from the kitchen to the DR. I was only thinking of making it down closer to the table. That would increase a straight run on your cooking side. I might have missed this somewhere... how wide is the pathway between the two runs?

SouthernStitcher...is it possible to see a layout of the kitchen & surrounding rooms? Hand drawn on graph paper is fine. (If you don't have graph paper, Google "graph paper" and you'll find many sites that offer a free download of graph paper.)

Include dimensions of all walls, windows, doorways, and distances b/w walls/doorways/windows.

Okay, here is my drawing. If it's not clear or I did it wrong, please let me know, I can re-do it!

I really like the idea of going darker with the cabinets, and having the countertops, backsplash and of course floor be lighter. But, I'm just a bit concerned about the black appliances. I can't switch to stainles - my fridge is brand new, and my cooktop too. Any ideas on a stain that would be darker, updated looking and blend with black appliances is welcome!
My cabinet guy advised me to extend the wall oven unit to accomodate at least a 27" oven.
Has anyone heard that 24" ovens will be obsolete in the next 10 years or so?
Otherwise, any simple layout change ideas are welcome. There will be no changing of plumbing. I'm not adverse to having an electrician come in and put some new outlets in, though.
Thanks again!