With the exception of the spices and the stuff on the fridge, your kitchen doesn't look cluttered at all, it's beautiful! I was surprised at the difference between your original post and the actual photos, you are 95% there. Even your cookbooks match (!) I would do what everyone else suggests about putting the spices in the same type of containers. I would also find another place to hang the stuff you put on the fridge or get rid of some of it. Regarding more accessories, you could get - colorful salt and pepper mills for above the stove - a cookie jar or flour/sugar containers for the open shelving next to the sink - serving trays, bowls, or platters in silver, bright colors or white for the shelving above the microwave - get something you would love to use as well as look at. I don't know if I would hang solid fabric curtains, your windows are not that large, but I LOVE the fabrics that circuspeanut picked out. Those types of fabrics could be used for more tea towels or aprons hanging on the wall. Anyway, your kitchen looks great. Here is a link that might be useful: wooden towel rack

I, too, haven't read all the responses (and only have a minute or so before my LOs demand my attention again)... but thought I'd share what I just did to my fireplace/wall in our Family Room. If you're open to painting your bricks (I know you said it was a last resort... it was for me, too!) A lot of what we have is similar to yours: open to kitchen which has white shaker cabinets; we have soapstone on wine bar; kitchen wall color is BM Revere Pewter; rest of 1st floor walls are BM Shaker Beige; floors are dark wood; we also have brick fireplace with built-in shelves on both sides. Personally, I couldn't stand the look of our entire wall. Shelves are low quality and uneven, cabinets below are also shoddily built and pieced together, the red/orange-ness of the bricks drive me nuts, the mantle is a piece of reclaimed beam with holes on top and altogether installed too high, etc. It will be years until we can completely redo this wall. In the mean time, the shelving got repainted when we renovated kitchen (replacing a horrible seagrean wall, including back of shelves) and shelves and mantle got BM Chantilly Lace to match my kitchen cabinets. I came across this tutorial online (link below) to give my fireplace bricks and mantle a make-over. Anything was better than the red bricks! I picked a brown that matched my floors for the mantle. For someone with zero paint experience and not particularly crafty, it was super easy! I still haven't figured out what to do with those ugly 4 metal vent covers, but I can definitely live with this for a few more years. Here are the results... This is the only before/after I have, which includes my kids flat on their backs watching tv: view from kitchen: Here is a link that might be useful: DIY whitewashed brick fireplace

Update! Just wanted to post a quick update. I took most of your advice and didn't sweat it, bought baskets and wine rack to stage the kitchen. My moms house sold in less than a week on the market! It settled last week...Bittersweet. But wanted to just show what I did, thanks everyone :)

Here's a photo of where we are so far. We can add or remove cabinets but I think I like the length they extend on either side. We originally had just the one cabinet with 2 doors but added the third next to it. There is wiring for sconces, we will center them once we set the cabinets and decide on shelves or no shelves. We are redoing the ceiling and beams also. Thinking of painting the wall charcoal gray, the color of that door on the right. Shelves or no shelves?