You won't like my answer. Save your money and elbow grease. The counters, floor, and splash are busy together. The cabinetry isn't quality and is dated. The refrigerator wall is awkward and ill planned. Save your money for a real improvement..........and that is a gut, sorry to say.

I'm sure you are already planning to clear out the clutter on your fridge, counters, on the floor and walls (we all have it). That should make it feel more open. You could easily and cheaply change out the hardware to something more contemporary with more clean lines. One last thought, you could remove a couple of the doors, maybe on either side of the microwave or even over the fridge, to have some open shelving for display.

As you said, improving a house for sale, requires a careful evaluation of investment vs. return. Have you consulted with several local realtors to see what the consensus is?

IMHO, Jan is correct - the counters and back splash are the problem here, not the cabinets. Unless the cabinets are shot (and we can't see that from your photos), save yourself time, $ and aggravation and don't paint them.

I have years of experience staging homes for sale and I would advise you to lose the back splash and replace it with a simple creamy white subway tile to connect the floor and counters. Then lose the green walls because they do not enhance the wood cabs, etc. As Stacy suggested above, replace the pulls with simple brushed nickle.

Then call it a day.

Best.

Change the countertops and the backsplash. Go with something light, like white beveled arabesque tile (traditional, like your cabinetry, but still much lighter and way less busy than your current backsplash) and a nice marble-like quartz countertop like Caesarstone Frosty Carrina Quartz. If you replace these, clear out the clutter, and change the lighting, the kitchen will look great.

I would remove the tile backsplash and leave the 4" backsplash, Clean, declutter and lighten the paint color. Undercabinet lighting as suggested will help as well.

If you live in a neighborhood that you would get very little return on any improvement, I would do very little. Just paint the walls neutral, replace the light, new hardware. clean well and de-clutter. The only thing I would have on the counters is a vase of fresh flowers.

white if the resale is the goal. won't be an easy job for a good result tho, lots of sanding on face frames, remove the doors & sand, spray paint, new knobs, pulls. sweat equity & best guess less than $400.

The tile backsplash is the odd man out. Remove it and repaint the room. Paint the backsplash area the same color as the walls. Replace cabinet hardware and the light fixture with something LED. Ditto on LED under cabinet lighting.

Would lose the bottom part of the angled upper corner cabinet. Looks like you can pretty easily remove the cabinet since it isn't boxed in to do a neat job of cutting in down. Lots of lost counter space there and removing it will make the kitchen look a lot bigger.

I wouldn't remove any cabinet doors because you're going to be left with a bunch of gaping screw holes.