Plan for your fridge first. It's the anchor. Since your current fridge may have a weak compressor (noises you hear) you may need to replace it within a few months. It is 20 years old so it consumes far more than the fridges available today which need less than $100 year to run.

Tell us if you plan on keeping the same layout. Function first.

David

What I would do...and have before:

Replace appliances as they go, unless you get to the place where you can do more at once. Start putting in the color you want to end up with. It's OK to mismatch for a while.

I don't think I'd do the floor until you're sure what the new layout will be....So cabinets first or at least figured out. If you want to protect the bare plywood under the range, get a scrap or some vinyl tiles to work for now.

Meanwhile, work on the plan so you have an idea where you're headed and don't do anything you can't afford to undo, or that doesn't mesh with the final plan. My sister ordered all new appliances when she first moved into her house, then it was a challenge to work around them with a new layout design. She finally did it, but it took a LONG time, a lot of frustration, and some compromises. Ordering the new ones right away was necessary, but it wasn't optimal if it could have been helped. (She had a challenging space and might have been able to better design around a range than her rangetop and dbl wall ovens.) Anyway, you just want to know that whatever you spend and put your efforts into will head you toward your goal.

This is what I did when I was in the same situation. I bought a used fridge and stove. This way when I was ready to do the kitchen, it was not a problem to say good bye to applicances that I had paid little for (well, they were much cheaper than new). Look on Craigs List, Freecycle or your local newspaper. There are great deals out there.
This worked very well for us.

That's pretty much what we did, too. We didn't buy used, but craiglist didn't exist then. I went to Sears scratch n dent outlet for the fridge, that sort of thing.

Doing it that way also helped me decided what I did and didn't like when it was time to do the big remodel (eg, bye bye side-by-side, bye bye downdraft vent, etc). So in the long run, I think it helped us save money by making better choices for the more expensive redo.

I never think of the buying-used option. It's a good idea, because your plans and ideas may change over time, depending on how long it takes you and how many great ideas you add by hanging around this forum too much! ;-)

Our 20 year old white fridge broke down a year before we decided to do a whole the new kitchen. I knew I would eventually want all black appliances so since the dishwasher was 20-years old as well, we decided to replace that as well, both black. The fridge was the Kenmore Elite French door, and the d/w Kenmore Elite, made by Bosch. The 20-year old oven was the old "hi-lo" type and since the wall behind wasn't finished, we had to keep it.

A year later when we decided to the entire kitchen. We bought a Kenmore black oven and GE microwave then and it all works great. We just concidentally got mostly Kenmore Elite appliances, but it would have been fine getting all different brands in the same color.

As Rhome said, get what you need now, in the color you wish to ultimately end up with.

Sear Outlet is a great place for a fridge, even for your PERMANENT fridge! I have a thing where I am resistant to used fridges, so I wouldn't do used. But I don't mind dents in places you can't see. With my last kitchen remodel I couldn't bear to dump a perfectly good mismatched fridge because I'm cheap, but when it died we went to the outlet store and got a SS model very inexpensively. The dent (we think) was on the side but we weren't really sure. It was new, warrantied, cheap, and delivered the next day, which is very good when your fridge dies.

So if you think you'll go scratch and dent, start looking now because inventory varies. Find when the new stuff comes in and maybe just maybe you can find a good one before you NEED a new one.

And if you might go stainless, go stainless! Stainless doesn't clash with almond but white would and you don't really know how long it'll be. And it's usually OK to mix a color and stainless in the final project--depends on all sorts of things of course, but you can almost always throw in a slab of stainless.

Craigs list is the place to find them.
Or call around on dent and scratch units.

7 years ago, I had to replace my stove 6 months after I move in to my 20 year old home. All appliances were almond. To my dismay they no longer made almond so even the bisque color would not match. I had not shopped for appliances in years and knew nothing of the stainless steel craze and even if I liked it. After allot of research and shopping We found a stove and refridgerator in stainless that we loved and replaced them. We kept the almond boshe dishwasher because it was fairly new and I could not justify wasting it. Now seven years later we are gutting the kitchen and I do not feel bad replacing it for what I want. Fori gave you great advice about the sears outlet. We call it the sears bumps and dent store. My brother in law who has allot more money than I do got all his SS appliances there. He said they even were willing to switch out doors from other appliances on the floor and he left with a perfect fridge and a stove and DW with scratches on the side that you cannnot even see because of their location. I wish I would have gone there. If you are open to the brands they offer its worth a trip.

When we moved in, in 2003, we knew from the start that we wanted to completely redo the kitchen, but we had no idea what we actually wanted. However we needed to get a fridge since the previous owners took their fridge with them. We bought a cheap, used fridge that would be good enough until we worked out the plans for the new kitchen.

Unfortunately that ended up not happening until 4 years later. So we lived with the small, dented, non-frost-free fridge longer than we wanted to, but on the other hand it did help provide incentive to finally get started on the remodel.

We eventually got rid of the old fridge via free cycle.

Craigs list is the place to find them.
Or call around on dent and scratch units.

There is more than one way to approach it. First, how soon do you see yourself doing the large, big ticket items like cabinets and floor? Is the electrical up to date? Does the floor plan layout work for you? Those are important answers. Doesn't make ANY sense to do cabinets if you have to open walls to redo plumbing and electrical later.

If you plan to do it over a period of just a couple of years, three at the most, and you have recession proof jobs, I would replace appliances as they go with what you really want. If you can see it taking 5 years or more, styles and your preferences might change and you might want something different by then, get used appliances. If there is little change expected layout wise, you don't plan on adding on or that is not a realistic option, and you plan to keep the current layout, a floor is a little less risky than otherwise. In that case, though, I would still consider buying extra to put away, or, if you go with wood, go with site finished in something easy to get like Oak, maple or Cherry, knowing it will need refinishing later on to blend into new areas if there are any. I don't know what your current kitchen is like, but if the layout is fixed, I wouldn't live 5 or more years with cracking, loose tiles or orange 1970s vinyl flooring, for example. If needed you can go with something neutral like wood that can be stained light or dark later to match your new decor, or something inexpensive like peel and stick tiles that you can just pop up and replace without taking much of a financial hit when the time comes.

If you have really bad cabinets, I would consider doing that first, even if it means going with Ikea and saving up until you can do that and buying the least expensive reliable used appliances for now in order to do it. If you have perfectly usable cabinets, you can easily wait on that.

You have to decide which "big ticket" item you need the most desperately to make the kitchen functional and livable. There is almost certainly some rational way to do that first, whatever it is. I gave appliances away for free, a working range and dishwasher, so a couple of people out there don't have that to worry again about for a while, now. :)

Let us know what the situation is and what you hope to do over how long and you will get much more useful advise.

In additon to the great advice already offered....

Very First Thing: Decide if you want to and can change the kitchen floorplan--noting that you said this is a townhouse and so may be limited in what changes you can make. For instance, you may not be able to install a range hood that exhausts outside the building. (Either for reasons of practicality or homeowner's assoc. type of regulations.)

Get a sense of what your neighbors are doing/ have recently done, kitchen update wise. Chances are that they have floorplans similar to yours and could prove to be a great resource of ideas and info on challenges/ solutions.

[The frig noise could be something very minor, like the evaporator fan that dissipates heat from the coils. If that's the case, it's an inexpensive DIY fix that will buy you time. (Online appliance parts stores and eBay for repair parts) And, so long as the frig is working, it has some resale value--yes, even an almond one--that will return you a bit of money & (probably more importantly) save you the cost of disposing of a non-working refrigerator.]