Hello,

We recently purchased a small beach house north of Los Angeles. The house itself is 3 bedrooms/2 baths, but it gets rented as two separate units. The upper unit has two bedrooms, one bath, living room, and kitchen. The lower unit has a living room, kitchenette, and a bedroom/bathroom.

The house was built in 1973 and I am guessing the kitchen cabinetry is original.

We are trying to figure out how best to redo the kitchen. We are updating much of the rest of the house so now seems to be the time. We are willing to completely gut the kitchen, but do want to be sensitive to the budget. An upgraded kitchen won't result in much higher rents -- what currently exists is not our of line with other rentals in the area. However, the new kitchen will obviously help when the house is resold. Although we plan to continue to rent the property as two units, it is possible a future purchaser could use it as one single family home.

I am attaching pictures of the floor plan and some pictures of the current kitchen. I do not have the exact measurements of the kitchen and won't be able to get them for a couple of weeks, but was hoping to get some general feedback before then.

Thanks for all your help.

This is the kitchen in the upstairs unit. I do not know what is in the large soffits, but there is no attic in the house.

This is the pantry to the right of the fridge. It is a pretty nice size.