I'd be tempted to try painting the walls man cave first. I think it could look stunning with your cabinets and go a long way toward making your kitchen look sleek. If you have the $$ for it, I'd consider changing out your countertops to something less yellow. If you find a laminate you like in stock at a big box store you can change out the counter yourself for just a couple hundred dollars - and it's easier than painting the cabinets. While you have the countertop off, maybe put up a new backsplash behind the sink - something high contrast with both lights and darks in it. And ... voila! New kitchen!

Wow, your dimensions are very similar to my house, although we have no basement and a prior owner did an addition off the back. The good news is that you can do a lot if you're prepared to utilize space from the dining room for the kitchen. There are (at least) 3 factors you need to think through carefully. One, opening up the wall between the kitchen and dining will make your kitchen visible from the front door. Not everyone likes that; for us, it was a perfectly reasonable compromise and I don't have a single regret. Either way, you want to think about the design with that perspective in mind. Even more important, you need to get the function right. Opening up the wall would give you 23 feet of length ... but it could mean a huge trek between the sink, range, fridge, trash if you don't plan carefully. Do you have a staircase to a second floor - does it run above your existing staircase? Finally, your budget looms large here. Opening up the wall was less exorbitant than I initially presumed, but in a small old house there are lots of costs I didn't initially anticipate. Your windows may need to be moved/resized among other things. I joined Gardenweb thinking we could just replace our existing layout and estimated it would cost about $15k. The eventual cost (including a heavy up, opening up the wall, and moving the gas and plumbing on a slab) was at least double that, and we'll add a bit more storage and counters in an upcoming addition/remodel. For us this made sense; we're here for the long haul and we still have one of the least expensive homes in our zip code. But YMMV. Finally, take a look at these two kitchen reveals that I remembered from wayyyy too much time on pre-Houzz Gardenweb. The first one looks larger than yours, but it's worth looking at since they did such a nice job of expanding without completely blowing out the wall separating the kitchen and dining: Cape house kitchen reno (So does this more recent one btw.) This one has a different layout than your kitchen but it shows how you can maximize every inch of a tiny kitchen if you plan carefully: beautiful small kitchen reveal I found this one when I was looking for the links to the others, another great example of what you can do with a very small space: tiny kitchen/dining reveal

It isn't an ideal place for a mirror, but if you want to keep it, could it be moved to the wall left of the doorway at the top of the stairs? That would give you a nice space on the current mirror wall to hang some art. You could also add a runner to add some softness and color to the area. Is there enough light for a plant to survive there? I would probably paint the door the same color as the wall so it disappears a bit, leaving the art and rug to shine.

Hi all, I need the idea for this long and wide corridor. How does the window look if I have a cabinet made?