There are alot of things in that kitchen that are not attractive and that makes the attractive things not stand out. Our eyes tend to skip on things that somehow stick out and do not seem pleasant. So the goal is to eliminate what does not work before you make it better. Agree with much of what has been said. as you agree, the ceiling fan has to go. I also agree that wood valance has to go. black light has to go. Take everything off the counter and only put up one thing that is really lovely. The pictures are hung in a way that when I first saw them, I went "huh". I would take them out of the room entirely first. You also need to lose the pot hanging rack that has not so attractive acoutrement of cooking. If you want a pot rack, fill it completely full of really useful cooking utensils so that it says "we love to cook here". Another option is to only put up nice looking pots and pans only. Right now, it does not add but only detracts from the decor. I feel the same about the pendant lights. If you want to spend only a little money, get something that is completely neutral so they blend in. The potrack and the lights do not complment the room well. Your ceiling accentuates that you have not so good quality dry wall job. You either need to make sure you have a better paint job or pick a color that does not show the uneveness as much. This again makes my eyes see blemishes first before the beautiful things. A part of this is the picture you posted. But if it shows like this in real person, it may be contribute to the blah. Why do you have a chair rail on one wall but not the rest of the dining room? Again, it is off kilter a bit unfinished feeling. If you have chair rails, this is a great way to bring in a second color to the room, thus giving a contrasting color for visual interest. This is what I would do, take everything off/out that does not quite work. Then start adding one thing at a time and see if it works before adding another accent etc. Painting takes alot of work and is expensive. I think the paint color is doable as is. If you don't mind painting, I would go lighter. At Cambria website, they give you coordinaing BM color for each quartz color. Start from there. You have lovely cabinets and counterop. I think you will pull it together. With a little work, it will look beautiful. Good luck. Here is a link that might be useful: color match with cambria

CEFreeman - She is quite the Mom! I can't even describe her fabulousness :-) Love the Olivine but don't think it will coordinate with her Verdi Pompeii. Are you the (in)famous worker of wood who gave me advice on my front door refinish? If so - update - I gave up and am having it done professionally. His price was so reasonable - $250. I'm sorry don't hate me ;-) I really tried but I just couldn't remove 142 years of paint even using the orange stuff! I will post some pics on the other forum. NorthCarolina and Livewireoak I called wilsonart directly. What a nice lady in customer service! Rare these days. She gave me names and contact numbers of five distributors who purchased large amounts of this color just prior to it's demise. I have called all of them with no luck. ONe was Hartson Kennedy. Again very nice and helpful people at these places. The gal at Wilsonart is requesting a recommendation for a coordinating color from their design department. Thanks for the great advice. Everyone of these people described how very popular it was so not sure why it was discontinued. Maybe we can effect some sort of repair on the area. I will know in the next couple of days.

We fell in love with the brava marfil. It has just enough taupe to read warmer-but was not too yellow/dingy. It might be too warm with stark white cabinets.

@katinparadise That is helpful information. We know that we have a big and expensive project ahead of us. Another thing that we'll run into is needing to bring everything up to code if the cost of the renovation exceeds 50% of the value of the house, which it might. (Most of our value is in the large piece of property on the water, with a lot of privacy even though we're in the city, with beautiful, gigantic live oaks, and not in a flood zone.) The rest of the house (other than the kitchen) looks nice inside, except for my wanting new cabinets and fixtures in the 2 bathrooms, needing new floors and some ceiling work. The one contractor that took at look a couple of years ago said that we should demolish and rebuild. At that point, we also said that we wanted to raise the roof In the living room and extend some outside walls. I'm sure that you're right about the issues other that we might run into, too. That's probably another reason that he suggested a rebuild. We considered doing that, but it would be extremely expensive. We came close to buying a new house this year and were told that the cabinets would cost $50,000. WIth that amount in mind, there is a lot of incentive to make do with what I have and also hopefully have money left to do much needed landscaping/hardscaping. That's why I asked the original question. On the other hand, my husband has finally agreed that I can have the kitchen of my dreams. My hobby is cooking, and we have a large family who usually comes to our house for family meals, which I love to host. (If the price tag of that is unbelievably high, he'll probably change his mind on that.)