What a thoughtful gesture! Work with the blue counter tops, remove the wallpaper and border, give the cabinets a fresh coat of white paint and use some blue and white toile to create a new valance. Shop with your mom to find some inexpensive blue and white transferware to hang on the walls and see if you can get her to part with the refrigerator photo gallery:)

Try putting the items on teh counter into cabinets to get a little more useable space. I took magnets, photos, etc off my fridge doors, put them in a notebook and kept the notebook by my cookbooks. Those 2 things gave the kitchen a more relaxed less busy look. My cabinets were dark but a friend and I sanded off the stain on the outside of the doors and cabinets. We just sealed them unstained with polyurethane. I didn't worry about the inside being dark since the doors were closed. 27 years later we were finally able to redo the kitchen and by then I knew what I wanted for sure.

that sounds great! My moms kitchen is sooooo dark though. She has wood paneling and dark brick in her house. I have no idea what to paint the paneling and trim/cabinets