How to make this kitchen a little less ugly
We just bought our first home and are trying to figure out how to do a small kitchen makeover to make it less ugly while we save up money to do a full kitchen remodel. I can’t stand the dark brown cabinets and kitchen island.
We are looking at painting the cabinets, kitchen island, and the white walls; as well as changing out the light fixture for a more updated pendant light (or a few) and putting new cabinet hardware. We are going to have to work with the very dark brown flooring, green granite style counters and white appliances. The adjacent living room is mostly wood paneling (third photo for reference)
Looking for ideas for paint colors and light fixtures that might work given the parameters of the flooring, counters, appliances and all the wood paneling in the surrounding living area. Open to any other suggestions for how to lighten up the space and make it more inviting!
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Edit: Wow, thank you everyone for your ideas and feedback! This has been super helpful. I've been using the mock-ups shared and making some of my own. I think we actually like the full off-white cabinets with the appliances blending in, however, thinking about painting the kitchen island a dark green to tie in with the countertops. Good idea for the kitchen matts to cover up the dark brown floors (the last owner just put that flooring in within the last year 😢). And then I think this point of getting different cabinet doors for the upper cabinets so that there aren't ten million small doors is pretty appealing.
And yes, for everyone who said rip it all out, we agree but that's outside the budget for now, so this is the makeover that will get us through the next five years or so 😄
Based on these ideas, did a mock-up of what it could look like but can't seem to add it to this original post so it's down below in the comments.