Thank you for your response. I actually have a close friend who owns kitchen cabinets company - and they are willing to do it for me at an extremely good price. So money is not an issue. They have some suggestions, but I really want everyone's input here as to what they'd recommend.

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The kitchen in beautiful as is, but in regard to the the changes you have suggested:
White cabinets will really brighten the space!
Were you planing on leaving the back splash as is?
The
island does look thin compared to the rest of the kitchen as the design seemed to be intended for stool seating... Not sure if that set up is great for the kitchen as the refrigerator doors would open into the people sitting there....
If you are going to redo the island I would suggest elevating the structural element by adding a wine rack or wine fridge or if you have pets a hidden water and food drawer!

I agree that if you put stools at the island, you may not need to change it, however, the layout of your kitchen is not right -- it should go refrigerator, prep water source, cooktop, with the cleanup sink and dishwasher out of the way of the prep space, and the ovens somewhere not necessarily in the same location as the cooktop. So are you happy with the layout, or are you planning to move things around?

Second, hat's off to inspired LED - we used them and they were great!

Thanks sjhockeyfan - we love hearing feedback from our customers!

Thank you for all your responses. Questions: What should I do with the hood? Should I keep stainless steel hood, should I do custom built hood to match cabinets in the current hood width? should I widen the hood to 58 or even 56 inches? Also, should I do some other changes? I'm trying to really beautify this kitchen. I want it to be "wow"!

It does not sound like you are planning on changing the perimeter counters and backsplash. I can't really make out what kind of floor you have. If you are keeping those three hard surfaces your most important decision is going to be to find a cabinet color that blends with them. You mentioned "white" but with the cream on the floor and (pink?)beige in the backsplash you are going to need to lean to a more off white than true white. It looks to me like your floor is a very yellow beige. Maybe the clash between your backsplash and your floor is part of what bugs you about your kitchen. Hard to tell from the pics and I'm no color expert for sure. My advice is to hire a color expert to come to your home and help you bring your current elements together with a new cabinet color. Maybe it will involve changing one of the hard surfaces, but better to have all the facts and choices in front of you before you make a big color choice to add to the mix. The color expert could also help you pick a wall color.

It's a lovely kitchen. Why don't you commit to live in it for one or two years? This way you can evaluate what you like and don't like. It may require a complete renovation to the studs, you may want to paint the cabinets, you might not want to do anything. Give yourself a little while to find out. It may save you some money or a big mistake. You may discover that you hate the master bath more. I'd give it a little time.

I think the cabinets are lovely but I think the layout looks somewhat dysfunctional. It looks like the island has a prep sink but it's on the wrong side of the fridge to be useful. If you're not interested in a total or partial gut job, I'd simply change the island so it works as a prep area with sink on fridge side. Then I'd add lighting. Then I'd live with it for awhile to see if this makes a functional space. If not, I'd do a more extensive remodel instead of just redecorating. Redecorating for looks without fixing the functional problems is like putting lipstick on a pig.

Would you care to share the floor plan so we can see clearances and such to better advise you?

I understand why the island is as shallow as it is - it's b/c of the seating. With seating on the back of the island, the refrigerator and a counter behind it, you need at least 60" b/w the island edge and the item that sticks out into the aisle the most - in this case, the refrigerator. The previous owners did the right thing if they wanted an island with seating - kudos to them!

Do you have a measured layout? An overhead & measured layout would let us see what is possible for that island. If you are willing to forgo seating, then a deeper island is definitely possible. You will need a minimum of 42" b/w the sink and counter edge of the island and then 48" b/w the island's back counter edge and the refrigerator (to allow traffic to pass through and allow the refrigerator to be open at the same time.) If you don't mind a "pinch point" when the refrigerator is open, that aisle could also be 42" wide.

Is that aisle b/w the refrigerator and the island a well-used path? What rooms do the doorways lead to? Where is your garage or family entrance?

I agree with others about the dysfunctionality of the kitchen - if you're going to spend so much money and effort on this Kitchen, I think you would be better off either selling the existing cabinets or donating then to Habitat for Humanity (or other charity). Then, put in all new cabinets...you can then have mostly drawers (highly desirable and more high-end than roll out tray shelves), a functional layout, and the cabinets you really want. If you have a friend who owns a cabinet shop and can give you a good price on a facelift of sorts, can he not do the same for new cabinets ("good price")?

Is your friend going to paint the cabinets & doors in-place (not recommended b/c you can't create a "clean room" in your home as easily as in a cabinetmaker's shop.)

Hood - are you planning to spend the money on a custom hood? They can be expensive. I think the hood is fine and will look fine with white cabinets. If you do get a new hood, then I recommend one that is 6" wider than the cooktop below. So, if it's a 36" cooktop, then a 42" hood. The hood should also be at least 24" deep.

Honestly, spending all that money is, to me, a waste if you're covering up poor quality cabinets, etc. with paint. What if you saved up for a year or two? Then you could really get the Kitchen you've been dreaming of!

Hi guys, you guys are hard negotiators! Pretty much everyone is telling me to live with it for awhile until i save up some more. I've been saving up for 10 yrs, haven't had a honeymoon, never bought anything nice for myself to have this house and I really really hate this kitchen. My husband and I really worked our butts off to save up for this and move our kids into "nicer" neighborhood with better schools. We saved up for remodel and got a good deal on this house - so we really want to do this. Kitchen is gloomy and I simply hate the current color of cabinets. Even if I put in good lighting and nice pendants, I still hate it, so I definitely have to change it. Cabinets themselves are not bad - just they didn't have much inside them. Plus previous owners were very dirty people (roaches, etc), never once cleaned their range / hood / oven as it was so dirty you couldn't turn it on. So I'm having exterminator bomb the house and getting all new appliances. Here in NYC to redo the kitchen with brand new cabinets will run me upwards of 40-60k (without appliances). Refacing will be much less. The kitchen guy will be repainting doors in his shop. The rest he will sand / etc in the house - after closing off the whole kitchen with plastic and doorways with zippered plastic. So,

1) The Island - I agree with most of you that the reason it is so thin is because I guess for sitting. I don't have measurements from the fridge to the Island (I'm not at the house right now). Will try to get them soon. But I am thinking of somehow making a "pretend" wider island by getting bigger panels on the side and perhaps adding a column on each side? Attaching a photo of what I'm thinking. Instead of two squares on this wider "side", I am thinking of having one wider square and them some column on each side. That way when looking at this island, it doesn't look as narrow as it looks now. What do you guys think of this idea?

2) The kitchen floor - I will be changing the tile of the kitchen floor completely. Not sure yet to what. I will also be changing all the hardwood floor on the 1st floor as 2 flooring companies told me it has bad water damage, that my house inspector didn't tell me about! :-(

3) Floor plan - Unfortunately I don't have a floor plan but since one of you guys asked above: to the left of fridge - the doorway leads to garage and mud room. To the right of desk workspace - the doorway leads to dining room. kitchen floors into great room (den).

4) I don't mind the current countertops - they are nice, but I don't like that the island's countertop looks thin. I really love the thicker look - i think it's called the double ogee? Should I keep the granite around the perimeter as is and change the island's granite to some lighter stone that matches the darker stone around perimeter? Do you guys think it will look ok?

Unfortunately I can't afford an interior designer (though I will look into color experts) as I'm in NY and prices are crazy here. I just browse photos on houzz and other sites in my free moments to get ideas.

5) The hood - one of you guys mentioned to do a wider hood - I agree 100%. But then I have to lose the current cabinets that are next to hood. Should I then go very wide or get narrower cabinets? Also do you guys like "seperated" hoods or hoods that are connected and flow with the rest of cabinets.

thanks again!!!! I'm still reading your other responses.

Also want to mention - hinges / slides are being replaced to nice soft-closing Blum ones.

If you replace perimeter counters, do you plan to keep the lower desk area or change to make it all one height?

If you are putting in hardware/pullout shelves to change the fixed shelves into pullout shelving, you could also change some of the wide lower cabs to drawer cabs by buying unpainted drawer fronts.

Honest question: If you're keeping the existing cabinets and just painting them, what options are there? Your layout won't change, so everything will be cosmetic, right? Paint color. Possible backsplash/counter/flooring changes. That's it.

IMO, if you want the kitchen of your dreams, do it. Go big or go home. Pull out the existing cabinets and sell them, and then use that money toward the new ones that will give you the bright, open feel you want. That way you can start your design with a blank slate, and plan a large island and whatever else you want.

Don't get me wrong... I think the kitchen is great. Is it my dream? No, but it's certainly not bad, and I don't know that it would be the first thing I would change in a house. It's not our house, though... It's yours.

Bottom line: You're asking for a SHOWROOM DESIGNER-APPROVED kitchen, and I don't think you can get that significant of a change with a little paint.

You need to take good measurements, particularly the aisles around the island. You may not have room to widen that island. Please post a diagram of the kitchen layout with measurements when you get a chance. You'll get better, more accurate advice.

A showroom kitchen doesn't start with a bad layout, builder grade cabinets, and a thick coating of paint to hide the sins. I don't care if the labor is free, putting high quality hinges and glides on crap boxes is throwing your money away. Especially if the layout isn't addressed. There's cost, an there's expense. And there is value. The costs for retrofitting won't give good value in return.

Can you please post some photos of kitchens you do love?

It does seem difficult to believe that retrofitting all the existing lowers to be drawers (will they be doing new custom matching drawer fronts?) and building a new hood and painting all the cabinets and getting new cabinets/carpentry for the island isn't basically the same price as new cabinets. However, if you say so, let's go with it.

Post what you do love, and we'll do our best to tell you how to achieve that from what you have.

The main problem with the layout is the placement of the fridge. Usually when cooking, you take food from the fridge and then immediately take it to the sink to wash it and then chop/mix/peel it before you cook it.

In this kitchen, there is no direct route from the fridge to either sink. You have to walk around the island every time.

The fridge is also the reason why you can't deepen the island the way you want to.

It's hard to tell without a floor plan, but if you were to move the fridge to where the desk is now, would any part of the island still be in front of the fridge? If not, then you can deepen the island and possibly move the prep sink to the other side of the island so it's handier to the fridge.

A good place to find a color expert is at a local Benjamin Moore store. Sometimes they have them on staff. In my area they run about $100-150 and hour to come to your house. If that is too much just be sure to use the great design experts on here to give you guidance in your color choice. You should start by picking your floor and you can post pics of your options next to your current counters and backsplash to help them see. Once that's picked you can do the same with pictures of your paint options. I stress this only because if you are miserable living in a kitchen that is visually unappealing to you now it would be a real shame if you pick the wrong white and don't get your main problem solved.

Although, as mentioned above, I can imagine the island looking fuller with its seats, if you are interested in achieving more functionality than expanding it is a viable option to consider.

The keys questions here would be:

-How much do you cook and entertain?

-Does your family sit down and eat meals at the island?

-Will those conveniences balance out against its cost?

As for a having a different countertop for the island, that’s a wonderful idea that can look beautiful.

[https://www.houzz.com/photos/astrus-and-absolute-black-leathered-granite-kitchen-marblecom-contemporary-kitchen-new-york-phvw-vp~17956402[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/astrus-and-absolute-black-leathered-granite-kitchen-marblecom-contemporary-kitchen-new-york-phvw-vp~17956402)

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/436215913879838344/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/436215913880814213/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDXn4p3tlwo

For the range hood, you really can’t go wrong with stainless steel. It’s a classic look that’s easy to clean and match pretty much everything, which is great for reselling and also if you decide to update again in the future.

Glass doors surround for the windows could greatly help to enhance the natural light situation, which seems to be lacking. Maybe consider some smart LED that you could adjust throughout the day. They are an inexpensive element that can really help the design of your kitchen.

Check out our page for more inspiration.

Hope this was helpful!

I can understand where the OP is coming from. I 'saved' for 20 yrs to get the kitchen of my dreams. When we first bought this place, we reno'd the kitchen before moving in. To this day, I believe our monies back then could have been more well-spent had we lived in it for a short time before making the changes. The layout was terribly inefficient (as was my previous kitchen). Take the advice given here and live with it for a (short) while and spend 10 times the effort working on a fantastic layout as opposed to the finishes and appliances. And yes, wolf and miele will still be around. These appliances will cost much more than a kitchen designer who would/should design a fantastic foundation for all the goodies you want to put in your showroom kitchen. Please don't take the 'lipstick on a pig' approach. In the long run, you'll regret the wasted monies.

I think the crown should go up to the ceiling.

My mother always said paint has a way of sterilizing everything. I understand the nasty factor. I moved into a home with side by side subzero refrigerator freezers. The compressor had failed in the freezer. The dirt bag owners were keeping their frozen goods in the roach infested Scotsman icemaker. I found the Thanksgiving turkey carcass on a platter inside the icemaker!

After the exterminator left, everything in the kitchen was washed down with bleach. I discovered the kitchen wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, once it was sterilized. I ended up replacing the appliances. I kept the sub zeros. They were fine once I got them working and applied a lot of bleach.

So, knock yourself out with paint. It will make things seem clean. Replace what is dirty, nasty or doesn't work. Then, stop. That doesn't mean you have stopped the project. It means you are giving yourself time and experience to make smart, educated decisions.

Don't spend any money on modifying the current cabinets. You are going to want to replace them sooner than later. You may discover the lighting is adequate once the cabinets are brighter. Before you replace the kitchen hood, try bleach, oven cleaner or a dishwasher packet with degreaser and a scrubby. It may be salvageable.

I just want you to make thoughtful, deliberate decisions. Give yourself space to make those decisions.

Since you have saved for the kitchen of your dreams, gut this one and start from scratch. You might want to consult a decorator about the layout. Hope you'll post some photos when your done, good luck!

Here's an update on my kitchen. I didn't listen to you guys about gutting it- really didn't have that in my budget as we came to a decision to gut 3 bathrooms! So right now, it's been sanded and primed twice (the doors are being sanded and primed at the shop). I will be changing the window valance, getting a custom wood hood and changing the island to be bigger by 8 inches. I will also change the countertops from current "builder's grade" to nice quartzite stone that I am still to choose (saw a few that I loved). The base toe kick around perimeter and island will be brought forward (after new floor tile is put in). I will change some cabinets doors to be glass. Add soft lighting on top (there currently is lighting under cabinets. Adding Blum soft close system, lots of pull out draweres and organizational stuff, lazy susan, garbage system, etc. I am also investing in high end appliances. Wolf rangetop, M-Series double oven, Microwave, Miele dishwasher and coffee machine and U-Line wine cooler. Cant decide on Faucets - being recommended Rahl, but wonder if I should just get Grohe. Also adding a pot filler faucet and changing backsplash IF I decide I don't like how current one looks after I see the final outcome with new color. I'm feeling positive so far.

Just in case anyone is interested. Here's my refaced kitchen. Did a few modifications here and there (island substantially increased, new hood and new shelves on the left side (former glass doors), as well as made the cabs left and right of window have antique mirror doors. I am extremely pleased and love my new kitchen and glad I followed my heart and didn't listen to the recommendations to "GUT".

I think it looks great! So sparkly! Painting always makes a huge difference. The granite on the island is gorgeous.

I didn't see the before thread but the after is beautiful. Glad you're happy with it.

WOW! Looks FANTASTIC! Love the pendant lights! Great job!

You achieved a completely different look.

Congrats. You did a great job.

I fell vindicated. I told you to paint. Wow! What a result. I particularly like the island. The island counter material is spectacular. I also like the smaller ceiling lights. They make things sparkle. The backsplash is very dramatic. What is it? I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Last, I used mirror in cabinets, too. Hides the mess but provides additional light. Just beautiful. I love the choices. I'm glad you are happy with it.

Thank you so much homechef59! You are right, love the mirror in cabinet doors. It's antique mirror, btw. I actually wish I did it on the doors by the hood as well (may do that later). The backsplash is calacatta mosaic with antique mirror from Tilebar. The island counter is quartzite called Blanca Luna. I adore it. Every morning while drinking coffee, I find new things in its pattern. I got new counter chairs, kitchen table and kitchen table chairs since taking the above photo, so will post the complete look shortly. Thank you for the praise everyone.

New updates (plz excuse the mess by the desk) . Any input on decor pieces would be appreciated. Like a bowl on the island. Also, still need to find a light fixture for above the kitchen table.

Where did you get the table and chairs?

The island top is stunning! What stone did you use?

Edited to say I reread an earlier post so I assume it's a quartzite. It's truly gorgeous!

Mkuyekawa, the table, Bassett Mirror, chairs, Global View.