The posts look structural; the pony wall certainly is not. If your cabinets are good quality, I would keep and paint them the way you originally planned.

Here's a company that will do custom doors for your current cabinet boxes. Don't know about price or location, but probably worth a look: https://mixitmodern.com/kitchen-cabinet-doors/

Getting new cabinets and custom panels will zoom you out of your $11,000 budget immediately.

You are creeping WELL past 11K. You need to put the brakes on and just live there. Plan for at least a year before you do anything. Your priorities will change.

11K was a fraction of the total budget for renovations for the townhouse (~35-40K)

S P, listen to Sophie. Your kitchen plans alone are getting into $40K territory and beyond.

I would change floor, hardware, add back splash, and paint....then when eventually change the counter.

Thought I'd update all on my progress.

Floors and banister stained, pony wall removed, tiles removed.

Any recommendations?
This is what's planned:

• Paint walls gray (thinking silver bullet)
• Refaced: White upper cabinets doors, Bottom gray cabinets from Semihandmade
• Kitchen tile: no clue yet - Any recs?
• Lowering the bar at kitchen to counter level
• New white quartz countertop - Any recs?
• Powder room: patterned tiles - not sure which yet

Don't mind the dirt on the floors. Before anyone says anything, I know it shows dirt easily.

ElleN - is that wood look? I can't tell. I'm not a fan of wood look porcelain. LOVE the color though.

Update on renovations. Still haven't decided on a tile for the kitchen floor, powder room or laundry room.

I would have added wood flooring before I refinished the other rooms and then had wood flooring throughout.

prob carry the same tile for the powder room too. I like any of your samples.

I also like this one from tilebar.com. it's a 24x24 porcelain that looks like limestone

you could also do a light hex

btw, if you want to jazz up the powder room, do this tile on the wall behind the sink

Sp, the one level island is my favorite part. It would be my recommendation number 1! well done.

I like the white tile, but I would go for the same floor as the living room, it will make the room look bigger, and bring a more warm feeling to the house.

My other idea is to do a waterfall on the island, it will look really nice and you will love it everytime you go down to the first floor. And it gives a more modern look to the house.

Yup! We are doing a waterfall. White quartz. Though it's a peninsula

Very lovely!!! You've made great progress!!

no easy way. sand them, de-gloss the finish if you have to, wipe clean (very well) prime and paint.

to make it somewhat easier, use the spray can primer (just tape and cover everything close)

wainscot ok,,, personally, I don't think a yellow would work, but try it out if you like. grab some samples. it would have to be a soft buttery tone.

what kind of paint is this? I've seen it before... there's a name for this feel/texture and i'ts not wallpaper i don't think.

i;ve seen those photos. it is wallpaper. or a very, very good faux treatment w/paint.

Ralph Lauren has those special paints w/brushes and techniques to make it look like linen, or burlap, or suede or whatever.

In a huge dilemma.. I got the waterfall quartz countertop. I picked out white marble like flooring 12x24. Now I'm thinking it will be way toooo much white going on. I would have gone with semihandmade gray lower cabinets and ultra white upper cabinets. Any recommendations now that the countertop is in?

It would be too contrast flooring with marble tiles.

Which tile to go with?
The hexagone or fabric like texture porcelain taupe tile in herringbone (8 x 24)?

Rectangle. But lay out the herringbone first to see if you like it.

Agree with rectangle, but not in herringbone. Everything can't be the star.

S P, curious how much Semihandmade quoted you for refacing the cabinets? It's looking great BTW!

Uh oh!!! So I had cleaners come in and they noticed some mold. I removed a few cabinets and low and behold there was mold behind the kitchen cabinets near the laundry room where the water heater is. So, now I have my new countertop in, was looking only to reface my cabinets. Now, I'm looking to replace my whole kitchen with Ikea cabinets. They excised the sheetrock and sprayed disinfectant on the area. Scrubbed/cleaned the cabinet. There's negative pressure hepa vacs running for three days in front of it. We don't want to risk it with the cabinets. Any thoughts? Seems like it's limited to this area.

What a turn of events!!!!

Uh oh!!! So I had cleaners come in and they noticed some mold. I removed a few cabinets and low and behold there was mold behind the kitchen cabinets near the laundry room where the water heater is. So, now I have my new countertop in, was looking only to reface my cabinets. Now, I'm looking to replace my whole kitchen with Ikea cabinets. They excised the sheetrock and sprayed disinfectant on the area. Scrubbed/cleaned the cabinet. There's negative pressure hepa vacs running for three days in front of it. We don't want to risk it with the cabinets. Any thoughts? Seems like it's limited to this area.

What a turn of events!!!!

If you can get the cabinets cleaned off then they'll be fine; if there is water damage to them that's another story. Where is the water coming from would be my concern... what is CAUSING the mold? Because it will come back if you don't figure that out.

Not good. So sorry this has happened. Can you just replace the cabs in one area? Some risk with pulling the tops. Also Ikea must be identical dimensions to reuse the stone. Are the pipes copper? When this happened at our rental, we had to repipe the whole house.

Most likely from the water heater. We don't know what caused it since we just bought the place. It was bank owned. Water heater is from 2016. Townhouse is built in 2006. I'm thinking it busted two years ago. The mold is dry and as the cleaner said "stage 1"