Dear Polar Princess, I am happy to read of your recent survivorship and a getting new lease on life. I think your oak cabinets look very well made and can be a star with some new accessories. Oak is a timeless, beautiful wood. Here are the changes I would try for minimal cost: 1) As has been mentioned numerous times: remove the stenciling & ivy to freshen the look. 2) If you can easily remove the light bridge over the sink and add molding to the top of the 2 cabinets where it connected, that will also modernize the look, as previous poster suggested, for not much money. 3) Backsplash: Provide Maximum sizzle and splash, which will transform the kitchen with a shimmering glass tile mosaic. See link below as example. Your area is not big, so you could pull this off for only $200 to $250 in materials. 4) Definitely bring in the brown leather bar stools you like or even something very modern in style as a contrast. 5) Counter tops: white laminate is not necessarily bad. In fact, if you add a shimmering glass backsplash that is a nice counterpoint to the white counters, you may find they are now more pleasing to you, without going to the expense of adding granite. You already know how easy to maintain your laminate counters are. You might jazz them up with some interesting place mats or update your centerpiece to be more in keeping with the brown leather & mosaics. 6) Window valence: maybe replace the lace look with something more tailored to complement the new backsplash and stools. 7) Wall paint: See how the backsplash changes the look and decide if you want to add wall color or not. 8) If you still yearn for SS appliances, check into changing out the front panels of the frig and dishwasher with SS. Don't think that is possible with the stove. I would really keep the bisque because they will look nice with the new backsplash as well. The link is from a larger website with many different choices of mosaic color combinations. The featured one is Anima because I think it would complement your while/bisque and oak and brown leather. Also check out several of the Spectralight (with and without El Dorado), Shimmerfly (one is Honey Pearl)and others which might complement your adjacent room colors. Good luck with all your decisions. We celebrate that you are here to make them! Anna Lee F Here is a link that might be useful: Glass tile backsplash

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!!!!

You certainly have soffits all around this kitchen! I would like to see the underside of the soffit treated like the one above the sink: put the wall color on all sides of the soffit and don’t use the ceiling color on the underside. Additional lighting is the best idea for the soffit, but you have to consider the other light fixtures, too. 1. Will you be keeping it? If so, find something that compliments it, and decide if you want to switch that lights around to the new spot to use a different type of light in the center of the kitchen. 2. Buy new complementary lights for the 2-3 places. Small hanging pendants would be very nice there and there are many central kitchen ceiling light designs to choose from. FUTURE IDEA: I love Boxerpal’s faux cabinet solution for the future—if you end up keeping the cabinets when you are ready to completely change the kitchen, use that great idea. Otherwise consider taking the soffits out to go farther up with cabinets. (And just living with it for a bit can be very freeing...spend where it matters the most for the most impact.)

as everyone has mentioned, tv is far too high. needs to come down at least a foot, maybe a bit more. you have to imagine if your tv sits on stand, and you put that on a console, how high would it be? you hang it at the same distance. this example (like grovers) is on a stand, but to hang it you'd only mount it about 4 inches above the console. a rule for a 65" tv, is 65" from floor to the CENTER of the screen. smaller tvs go lower. you have the perfect wall to do all sorts of things. some built ins, or shelving, or even a nice wood console. just depends what you like. here are some examples that would look great w/your room.