I am in awe of the progress and the difference, kdw72697 !!! And your Little Helpers are just toooo precious! Let us know as soon as you decide what you are going to do with the track lighting, and any other changes, of course! :) THIS is my kind of Topic....anything to do with the words "Super-Cheap", and I'm there. Fantastic Suggestions throughout this topic and I'm so grateful you all posted them! Everyone who posted pics....THANK YOU! I am always on the look-out for new ideas, inspiration, anything "budget-minded" to freshen up my own home. The colors you've used, the kitchen set-up...all ideas that motivate and inspire me! Igloochic, Your home....always an inspiration at every turn...especially since I use paint and paint techniques to create something a little nicer than the norm (the 'norm' that I can't even afford!) ....I've used your home pics more than once to get me motivated. Here's my latest budget project...maybe someone else can benefit from it in their own budget-minded kitchen. Real Travertine Tile Trim was NOT in the budget but the discounted/discontinued tiles we purchased looked so nekkid without something on top (the discontinued tiles didn't have bull-nose or anything close to matching). A length of cheapy wood chair rail molding, some left-over stucco in the bag from an earlier window re-do and my paints and some good sealer..... (I DID resize these pics to make them smaller...I hope it worked!)

Head on over to Photobucket.com and set up an account. The upload process is pretty easy if the pictures are saved on your hard drive or flash drive. Once you've saved your pictures onto photobucket, put your mouse over the picture you want to share. It should pop out a box that has Share:Edit:Delete:Move on a blue background. There are 4 titles below that from top to bottom: Email & IM, Direct link, HTML code, and IMG code. Take your mouse to the HTML code line and left click on the box to the right. It should start with Now head back over to gardenweb and type your message or response in this case. Where you want the photo to appear, right click your mouse and select "paste". A whole bunch of gobbly-gook (that's a technical term) will appear. That's your picture code, so don't delete any part of it. Click Preview Message and see if your picture appears. If it doesn't, well, someone a lot more saavy will need to help you further. Kathe

Jhmarie, so funny/ironic you posted the pic with the dark gray walls, because I just remembered a friend who purchased a home with oak cabinets and painted her walls Benjamin moore Storm AF-700 and it actually looked amazing! She had light gray tile flooring and black appliances as well. And she brightened it up with lots of white and bright accent pieces. So the white beadboard wallpaper is a genius (and inexpensive) recommendation. I actually love it so much I'm going to save that idea for my house. Hillaryndillon, it's completely understandable to feel that way! You want to LOVE your house and when you see all these awesome ideas on HGTV it's easy to get discouraged. You have a very nice kitchen. My advice is to move in, clean, unpack. Live in it a couple months before making any decisions. See what works/doesn't work. For example gray walls might seem nice but depending on the direction the room faces and the lighting, a gray could be too dark/drab for the space. You won't know until you're there for a little while. It took about 6 months of living in our home to really decide which rooms we want to repaint. Seeing the rooms at different times of day/different lighting can make a huge difference. Also you may find some oil rubbed bronze light fixtures on sale or clearance.. and that could jumpstart an entirely new design direction (you may want to do ORB cabinet hardware if lighting is ORB)... so see what I mean? Don't rush it. :) I made that mistake before and it stinks when you just want to CHANGE a space so badly that you get excited and do it without really getting to know the space and also researching design ideas. One thing I wish I'd known about sooner is "whole house paint scheme"... google it or search on Pinterest. Really great ideas on how to use color (paint) in each room of your home so it coordinates and looks thoughtfully planned out. I had never heard of it until I used this forum. Lots of ideas on here. Good luck :)

If those are laminate cabinets, you might find laminate paint. I've seen Canadian designers use it to redo those same cabs, but not sure what the paint would be called in the U.S.