Our kitchen needs a facelift. Any suggestions? Details below.?

Question

We need to update the look of our kitchen on a very limited budget.We have white vinyl flooring with small black diamonds. It has to stay.
Our black refrigerator has to stay. Our stove and dishwasher are cream colored. There is crown molding & a chair rail in the kitchen that are stained what I believe could best be described as a pecan color.
The major updates we want to make are to our countertops (not granite because of $$ ) & our cabinets. The cabinets are in fine condition & are stained the same color as the molding.
They are typical 80's style cabinets with a curved routed pattern on the outside edge of each door. We were thinking of using a think trip molding to cover the routing & then paint the cabinets. What color? We don't know.
Can we strip the stain off of the cabinet doors & then stain a darker color? I thought cherry might look nice, but then I have to do all of the crown molding & chair rail in the room too.

We need a decorator! Anyone out there?

Any suggestions for countertops? We have off-white laminate right now. What are good, inexpensive countertop options? Tile? More laminate? Any color suggestions? Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi,
We just revamped our kitchen last winter. Ours is a 50's ranch. They had new cabinets installed in the 70's. They were extremely outdated since they were over 30 years old. We decided to paint them. We went to Lowe's and told them what we were doing. They gave us the name of a oil based paint to cover the wood with. Let that dry and they we used Latex paint on them. We distressed them. Look great. Got a deal on new knobs off of ebay. New counter-top, sink, floor, faucet, etc. All for under $1000 which is a bargain. The biggest expense was the counter top; laminate but we have a large kitchen. We went with yellow walls, off white cabinets, white porcelain sink, polished nickel knobs and faucet, stone look floor tiles and the counter-top is really neat. Forgot the name of it.
As far as a color, go with light cabinets. Makes the kitchen appear bigger. Any color will go with black and white in the floor.
Pick a color for the walls and go from there. Email me is you want before and after pics of my kitchen. Good Luck....Like I said, the best place to buy things is E-Bay.....If you are intersted, let me know and I will find the name of the base coat we used so you can get it. Worked great!!!!! [e-mail] We asked what kind of clear coat to put on them and they said that it was oil based and would melt the latex paint; the paint would age and get hard. It did and we love them. The appliances can be painted with spray paint...I used Krylon on a dishwasher before and it worked great; but the stove takes a special kind I think. As far as a color scheme, pick something you will not get tired of quickly. Use a color for the cabinets that will go with many colors; you will change your wall color more often than the cabinets and for the coutertop, pick something that you will not tire of. Home Depot was much cheaper than Lowe's. My kitchen is SunPorch Yellow, with a fruit border. I accented with red and white checks and red. Really looks great. As far as the chair rail, you can pick a color similar to your cabinets. I have a chair rail in the dining room. I painted the top half and wallpapered the bottom. Ihave a border at the top. Yes they say borders are going out of style but the walls were so plain. Don't forget to accent your walls with pictures and such.

Answer 2

Thinking more neutral. First off the applicances should match. They sell appliance paint to spray that fridge to match the others. Revarnishing (is not merely a stain) is hard work and difficult. Would go paint = will also modernize the look a bit. Refronting the cabinets yourself by removing the existing doors, lightly sanding all remaining cabinetry to remove gloss /dirt and then primer, paint with white enamel paint. Would use similar color to appliances inside cabinets. Touch up sand as needed and then clear coat for durability. Leaving certain doors off, exposing cabinets is trendy. Can place cook books, spices, coffee tin / mugs in those. Remaining - you could rework those doors by adding molding / cutting out for glass inserts. Paint them to match either the exterior or interior of main cabinetry. Interior paint color would give contrast / look sharp. Paint chair rail to match interior of cabinets if you go that route on the doors. To the walls you can add a touch of color - pastel shades - one for above the chair rail and another for below and follow that throughout the room. Would look for corian type counter top remnants/discontinued stock at home builders. Even if you can't find the sizes needed - you can blend them together carefully. You want color - put that in your accessories. For future resale considerations this would be the route to go. Can also look at some style magazines on the net to get more ideas. Trick is to complete one project at a time. Attempting to do it all together will only create stress.

Answer 3

As soon as you said black and white I thought of RED as a third color or sunflower yellow or pumpkin orange. Either the walls or the counter top. They can order the size you need from home depot or Lowe's. Then you just need to remove the old one and have the new one installed and a plumber to reinstall the sink.

Consider instead of trying to paint or re-stain the cabinets. Replacing the doors with ones with glass inserts. Then you just take your measurements and order the ones for maybe just the top with glass, clear or opaque. Maybe all new knobs like red balls to go with the counter top.

Look at a wallpaper maybe a red black and white stripe or paint .
Red below the chair rail height (30 to 36 inches) and white above

Then white small appliances would look good on the red counter.

Red print curtains or blinds on the windows.

Answer 4

I work at a home improvement store and was told that if your cabinets are factory stained, then you can't strip and re-stain them. (I'm not saying this is the correct answer either, just what I was told). I was told that you would never get all of whatever the factory used to finish these so if you re-stained, you wouldn't get 100% result of what you were seeking.
As far as the counter-tops, there is that counter-top laminate you can glue on rather than take the whole thick counter-top off. Look in the appliance section of a chain home improvement store and there should be a dozen or so choices of tops you can chose from. It is alot more economical. I will be re-facing my kitchen soon and I am choosing to paint the dark stained (70's) cupboards and losing the ugly orange (70's) counter-top myself and without alot of costs involved. Look in to it, you'd be surprised how much it won't cost you to redo this!! Good luck!

Answer 5

Check out the formica counter tops, they have the look of marble and come in a variety of colors, they are less expensive than marble too.

with a black and white floor , why not go black/gray/white swirl for the counters and paint the cabinets white with black trim.?

good luck and whatever you do don't get stressed out! Just have a lot of fun.

Christian in PA

Answer 6

Go to the granite countertop supply, sometimes they have odd pieces you can get for cheap. There are other alternatives - ask at the supply place. I believe that alot of people are using limestone as an alternative. As far as cabinets go,re- finishing them is alot of work. If they're in decent shape, leave them alone. When you have the money, replace them.

Answer 7

Paint, paint and lots of paint.. That makes all the difference in the world!!