Amazing what some people think is ugly. If you recently purchased this and are a tight budget, why did you buy something you didn't like???

beachlily, people often buy houses that have things they don't like about them. Often it's because of budget that you might settle, and often it's because the home's location is too good to pass up. Things like ugly kitchens can easily be fixed. Personally, while I don't LOVE the kitchen, I don't think it's that ugly either. Repainting the cabinets and changing out the hardware to something more modern (like bar pulls, for instance) would make a world of difference and not be expensive at all. I'd be careful of laminate. Inexpensive laminate does not hold up well and can't usually handle any spills at all or the seams swell. I am assuming you are on a slab (since most florida homes are). Although I love hardwood, in your case tile might be the most cost effective. You can get tile in all price ranges and it will usually all hold up equally as well no matter the price. Tile is also very appropriate for a florida home. Many homes have it throughout.

I don't think it's that bad. Fresh paint and a new light fixture would change the look considerably. You can wait to make structural changes until you can afford it.

We bought what we could afford with a larger square footage in a better neighborhood with what we think has good bones. We thought the home had potential of what we could do ourselves over time as we could afford it. We wanted it to be on one level with a pool so I can do low impact exercise due to a bad back and wanted a little land around it so I can barrel fire my ceramics which my creative outlet. I think the ugly part is the wall paper and the two tone cabinets which I think can be improved with paint and thought others might have some thoughts about that. Unfortunately I have decorator thoughts on a pauper budget.

my previous comment was to beachlily

fran, thanks for your encouragement

ccoombs1, you hit it on the head, that's exactly why we purchased this home and I appreciate your advice.

There is A LOT you can do there on a shoestring budget! Yes I agree, the floors should go. A laminate floor would be a huge improvement over what is there. Take the wall paper down, remove the light fixture, and remove all the hardware from the cabinets and you have a blank slate. An eat in banquet table would look great in that space. I would definitely paint the cabinets all one color and replace all hardware. Maybe you could replace the counters with IKEA butcherblock?
Please look at what this fellow GWer did with her meager budget, it is a truly amazing transformation, hopefully it will give you some inspiration.

Here is a link that might be useful: Enigmaquandary's kitchen

I don't think it's ugly at all. It's WAY better than mine was when we moved in.

It's a good neutral colour and I actually like the floor if that's an expense you want to save on. Some older floors really scream at you, but I think it's very livable. If you did change it, I really like the idea of tile throughout the house. That would give a feeling of continuity.

What we did with ours was paint the cabinets, change out the hardware, faucets, replaced the counter with Wilsonart, new inexpensive backsplash, new light fixture, and modern accents. It didn't cost a huge amount of money, and it got us 20 years before we did a gut job this summer.

I think you've got a great canvas to work with.

Your reasons for buying this house are very sound. It's the old "buy the worst/smallest house in the best neighbourhood" philosophy. It almost always pays off.

Congratulations. You're going to have a lot of fun with this!

Tile, paint, new light fixture and cabinet hardware. You can find great deals on cabinet hardware on ebay. If you like to go to garage sales you can find great light fixtures for practically nothing that only need a color change, for example; those cheap looking fake gold fixtures can be made beautiful with your choice of finish and can be bought and finished for well under $15. For flooring, big tile. There are alot of deals out there right now on tile but pick something where the color is all the way through or you may regret it (I do). The window needs a casing around it & wall paper removed...that's it.

You can absolutely make it look better. Everyone wants to put their own stamp on their new house!

Taking down new-ish wallpaper is not that bad, particularly if it's the vinyl-coated type. I could have all the wallpaper down, spackle and sand any bad spots, paint trim and walls (and probably a couple of other rooms) in a weekend, including long drying times between things -- easy. Plus do other things. It's not a nightmare, I promise.

You might even just hang a big painting over the pass-through on the dining room side. Put shelves on the kitchen side. It's a quirky midcentury feature that sounds like it's more trouble to obliterate than to live with. I'd just work around it. I think it's kind of fun.

I think you slab cabinets are basically modern -- if you replace the pulls, as you want to. It should not be hard to paint them either. I painted mine and they held up very well for the almost 5 years before my reno. Painting them was not a nightmare either. It took me a day, but I was doing it the fast way (didn't take them off their hinges.)

And the new lighting is a reasonable expense for a big change in style.

Once you get your own things in there and change out a few things that bother you, I don't think some of the other things (white fridge etc.) will bother you so much. You might never have picked them yourself, but they will kind of recede into the background.

That's why I advise people on a budget to tackle projects like this one by one. You may think "YUCK! These 7 things have to go RIGHT NOW or I'm going to go crazy!" But then you change the worst 4 that are the easiest and cheapest to change -- start with paint! -- and you find that the last 3, which would cost you the most and be the hardest MIGHT not be necessary. Or can be put off for much longer than you think, without you going crazy.

So I would live with a little table and chairs for awhile and think about a banquette. It might be perfect, or you might tweak the design, or you might decide against it. Or it might just help space out your finances. A nice, usually cheaper alternative is a pre-made bench, with or without arms, with colorful cushions.

Enjoy your new house!

If you have already have back problems and require low impact exercises, then I would be very reluctant to use tile on the floors. Standing on tile is VERY hard on the back as well as the legs. Laminate, wood, or vinyl would be better choices for someone with a back problem.

I also vote for laminate over tile. The way I see it, tile is much more permanent. You want something that you can easily remove when you finally get to do the full renovation.

In addition to the new flooring, a modern lamp! That stained glass thing looks more at home in a southern victoria abode.

I see an ugly under the cabinet light fixture. Leave it there but put some brown (color of the counter?) trim around it so u get only indirect light from it. Of course it should give out warm white, not cold white.

Florida homes have a cement slab base so whether it be wood or tile, standing in the kitchen too long is going to hurt either way, even if you cushion underneath the laminates/wood as it just gets packed down after a while. I try to wear thick cushioned flip flops or good quality running shoes if I have a big meal to prepare. Another thought is to get a trolley with wheels with maybe a butcher block top, when my RA in my spine is acting up or IÂm getting that leg nerve thingy I just lean on and wheel stuff around on that.

How temporary are the changes -- i.e. when is this future reno planned? And are you doing the floors in the rest of the house now?

If the big reno isn't far off, I'd leave the vinyl for now. (Hey, I have the same floor in my utility room!) A nice bamboo or jute rug could attract the focus instead. It would be better to have the cabinets gone when you redo those floors so you aren't hampered by the footprint or face the expense of replacing the floors again. Or, take a peek under that vinyl and see what you have -- if it's concrete, you could rip up the vinyl and paint the concrete for now.

If you are going to do the rest of the floors in the house now, and would want the same in the kitchen, just be sure to buy enough extra material.

Instead of messing with the cabinets, you could buy new laminate countertops instead in a fun color. It looks like you can use stock counters and it would be a quick & cheap change. I think it would elevate those cabinets, at least more so than the effect of painting the cabinets but leaving the counter.

For the pass-through to the dining room, you could turn that into a spice cabinet and drywall the other wide.

WRT laminate, there was a thread recently where the consensus seemed to be that good quality laminate can be very durable - more durable than hardwood. Cheaper laminate (the kind always advertized for $2/sqft installed) is not worth the effort to install. Another bonus of laminate over tile is that it is a floating floor. If the slab has some movement (they almost all do to some degree) the tile, especially large tile could crack. I know there are special installation options to reduce the possibility for cracking, but you should specifically ask a good tile installer before going that route on a slab.

You are right, the bones and location are the key factors when chosing a new home. How exciting to personalize it with your own unique touches! And I suspect you will find additional satisfaction for being able to say you did it on a budget. Having a budget is also a great way to help you prioritize! Can't wait to see the transformation.

Here is a link that might be useful: laminate in kitchen thread

Gee, I was feeling rather poorly this morning after posting because this move across the country has been really stressful for us in more ways than you want to hear about here.

We fixed our last house up so nice and folks said they thought our remodeled kitchen and everything else we did ourselves should have been in a magazine, and then we had to sell for a loss just to get out from under it.

I am now glad I posted. I will post photos as we go along and thanks for all the encouragement and advice and links, I will look at each one after tomorrow when we close and discuss with DH and see where we go from here. You all have given me so many good ideas I never would have thought of since this move is such a huge undertaking for us in so many ways.

Thanks ever so much again.

I don't know how much cork floors cost, but that's something some GWers have installed and might be the easiest flooring on your back. If you're interested you could post a separate topic to find out about cost, wear, and how it does in a humid climate.

I agree with others that you can use paint, new hardware and a new light to make a big difference. I'd hold off on the banquette if you think that eventually you'll do a bigger renovation (you'd want it to fit in with everything else.)

You don't say what kind of ceramics you make, but over time you can create some unique pieces for your kitchen to really make it yours. And in the meantime I hope your move goes well and you can enjoy some FL sunshine!

I see a lot of potential here, even on a small budget. When you said you might go with tropical colors, I immediately thought of a kitchen I saw in a bed and breakfast in Key West...The Popular House...you could paint your cabinets black (or even Cobalt Blue or Dark Teal) and use some funky tiles for the countertop, or even varnished teak wood. What an opportunity to do something bright and unique! For some inspiration you might check out Key West The Popular House Bed and Breakfast photos on Trip Advisor. Good luck, have fun!

There are lots of cool, tropical, inexpensive lam inate options now. A lot of the new products are faux marble or faux granite, but I think you might have more fun with a different look, especially if you are painting your cabs.

From the (atrociously confusing) Formica site:

When we moved into our house nearly 16 years ago it had what I thought was a hideous kitchen but we had a 6-month-old and no money to spend. We had the weird metal cabinets painted, replaced the ugly pendant (which might have been a cousin to yours) and had the great luck to uncover the original long leaf pine floors under a top layer of sheet vinyl and another layer of stick-on vinyl tiles (we were debating tile versus laminate before that lucky find). The door hardware was ugly but an unusual size that we couldn't find a replacement for (in those days before the internet) so we just painted them with a verdigris finish and called it done.

It was a vast improvement and it worked fine for us for 13 years or so until finally the doors started falling off the cabinets. We do love our new kitchen now but saving our money and taking our time (okay maybe we pushed the taking our time a bit far) was a good thing for us.

Good luck with your new home and your new kitchen space. I look forward to seeing what you do with it. You've found a great resource here for advice and inspiration.

We moved to Florida into a bigger house with a god-awful kitchen. Yours is lovely! Okay, I realize it is not perfection, but I agree with what everyone is saying on here, some paint and a new light, switch out the hardware and it will be like a new set-up.

I would recommend looking into engineered wood flooring. I don't know if it is a great savings, but I do believe it can be installed over slab easily and I personally find the pergo-type flooring uncomfortable to walk on.

Two things I would like to suggest. One, just paint over the wallpaper. It really is not that big a deal, despite warnings against it. We did it in our last house to no adverse effect. Also, you may want to consider painting the backsplash, if it is not to your taste. We have a patch of really ugly tile in our house now. It reminds me of tile that was installed in Burger Kings in the 1970's. So bad. My husband painted the tile black. It is in an area of moderate use and has held up well. You would have no problem with a wall application and it might brighten things up a bit.

I agree with the suggestion for covering up the pass through. In addition to a picture, you may want to consider a mirror.

Good luck and enjoy your new digs!

"Two things I would like to suggest. One, just paint over the wallpaper. It really is not that big a deal, despite warnings against it."

Until you have to remove it because the wallpaper is falling down. Then the job is 20x worse and far more expensive.

I haven't read all the responses and folks probably have some good suggestions... but I just wanted to say it's no bad at all! If you like a modern style (as do I) I think that a few REALLY inexpensive changes in there would make you happy enough to live with it for a little while till you decide what's exactly right for the space. Take down the wallpaper, new lighting, nice wall color, not much else. I am not sure I'd change the flooring if a more major reno is anywhere in your future. If you decided to change the cabinetry footprint later you'd have to redo the floor.

I hear you on the budget DIY renos! We did the same as you (larger house, good bones, needed renovating badly) when we bought our last house. Our entire kitchen reno, which included moving a wall and adding custom built-in shelving in 3 rooms, came in at $12k. We used Ikea cabinets, I assume you've looked into them? Their glossy enameled ones would look super fab in that house :)

But in the meantime... those cabinets aren't bad AT ALL. Maybe just new door pulls and a coat of paint if they're shabby in person (look fine in the pics though)... maybe paint the dark frame so it's not contrasting with the doors?

Basically I think you could spend $500 on some paint, lighting and pulls and a few peripheral things and have a really cool kitchen that could tide you ever a while. When you've lived in the house a bit, and cooked in the kitchen, and seen how you use the adjoining rooms, you'll have a better idea what renovation you really want.

That's what I'd do!

thanks everyone again. We have to take down the wallpaper which we expected because it is peeling everywhere and the flooring is peeling too. the house was built in 1982 and everything in it is original, two elderly folks lived there so it is not worn out just not fairing well at the seams.

After tomorrow I will post more photos with the pass through, close ups on the wall paper and the cabinets.

We are wavering back and forth and today we were thinking of engineered wood for the living/dining and master and vinyl that looks like tile in the kitchen and nook. We did that with one home and it look so much like tile folks thought it was till they touched it.

marcola - that black and tan striped laminate is an eye stopper - is that for counters? I might have to get that and paint the cabinets a coordinating color,

chicogoans I think I am nixing the banquette due to the permanence of it. I relooked at the backsplash and i think it is a fake tile panel. I do high fire ceramics and I was looking at it today and thinking hmmmm I could do something with really wonderful for that and it would be so cool to say I did it myself.

We are wanting to get it all done because we just got our previous house done and then we couldn't enjoy it so we'd like to get something semi - permanent here quickly so we can just relax without being in a remodel mode cnostantly like we were before. Our last house we basically remodeled the whole house, I mean the whole thing and then we had to move.

So this house we want it comfortable but tasteful quickly and then we want to take er easy for a while before we drop from constant remodel sickness. Ha.

More later in the week, thanks again all, we are researching all the options you have suggested and few more along the way.

springville gardens, yes, I think that's for counters. But if you really like modern, and you're willing to do some work: It would look absolutely fantastic on your cabinets. Paint the door edges black, then veneer the boxes and drawers and doors with that laminate in a vertical orientation. (You might bet away with putting it only on the doors, and painting the boxes black, too.) Then put something different on the countertops--stainless steel (can be inexpensive) or the green laminate above. Your place will look like a luxury Miami hotel.

Picture something like this:

{{!gwi}}

Or this (though I'm not a fan of the horizontal orientation):

{{!gwi}}

Given the building climate in FL I bet you could find someone to do that for you for short money, if you didn't want to DIY.

Marcola, IÂm digging those laminate pictures. Most people do not realize how easy and inexpensive laminate is for DIY, itÂs all in the prep of course and that handy long flat filer. Those are some great ideas. And, you can buy those stainless glass doors online. One inexpensive source is cabinetmakerschoice.com

i think it's a very nice k*itchen... I'll trade ya!

paint, new pulls, new light, t*able etc and I'd call it a day for at least 6 months. recuperate from the move, enjoy the pool and live with it while you make decisions.

spend some time looking at local stores for k*itchen setups FL style.

make it all livable for now, then make plans for more long term fixes.

btw, I have an 'opening' in my future k*itchen - actually, it's got some horrible glass thing in it. could even be plastic... my quick fix will be a southwestern print on the k*itchen side and a painting on the DR side. maybe next yr I'll have it dry walled up - or have a niche on the DR side.

go to local flooring stores and find out what your options are for replacing the vinyl. with back problems, you need cushioning on the floor. I have back problems also and will probably go vinyl.

what vinyl looking like tile did you put in a prev house?

marcolo, wow, I just showed dh and he loves that look. I am going to get a door front of the same material and practice on that technique in paint I think I might be able to simulate it myself. I'd paint the backs black and then two tone the fronts. I actually like the vertical as it would make the room appear taller. we have to move the RV which we have been living in for six months to our new home, so more later.

I love that green counter top, wow that green and the black looks super together. man alive I am getting excited.

desertstep, I was two houses ago and it was by armstrong, I don't have any photos cause i didn't have a digital camera then, I'll see if I can find a link to it. we had oak cabinets in that house and I brought samples home and got wilsonart counters and armstrong vinyl flooring and it looked like a million bucks. more later today, dh is chomping at the bit to move the rV and we have to put all the stuff in the cabinets so we can drive 1.5 hours to our new home now,

thanks every so much to everyone for your support I am really getting excited, I think some paint and such is really going to do wonders

and we can have something ultra modern - that we like.

I have an Armstrong Congoleum in my kitchen now that looks like tile. People generally can't tell the difference without touching it. It was more $$$ than tile though.

springvillegardens, I'm glad you like it! One thing I'd suggest is to experiment with paint vs. actual lamina te. I've done faux bois/fake wood painting myself. I actually did a good jo b, but found that over a large area, it can be difficult to get it consistent and realistic. On the other hand, I know people who have applied lam inate on their own, and found it's not hard once you get the hang of it.

So, I'm not pushing you one way or the other, just suggesting you experiment a little with paint and with a smaller piece of lam inate, and see which product floats your boat higher.

Good luck!

Take a look at the great kitchens on the "weird and unusual kitchen" thread. I wish I could be that clever. The good thing is that it makes one realize that one can have an attractive interesting kitchen without the high end stuff. Enjoy!

secondlouise, I can't find that thread?

here is some laminate I really like for the floors for the kitchen and throughout the house. It is pecan laminate, what do you think?

{{!gwi}}

There was the cutest re-do of a house with a galley kitchen and an eat-in banquet that was in Sunset Magazine. They used lime green and orange as their accent colors on the wall above the banquet (yes, very bright), but it turned out really really nice! The kitchen actually reminded me of yours! I am going to try and find it......

I think this kitchen will be totally fine! Where's the nearest Ikea??? Find it!

firsthousemp - oh I hope you find that kitchen, tampa has an Ikea, I think, we'll have to take a drive down there next week.

I called this guy and drove to go see this dinette and just as we got there this other lady bought it. It was so comfortable to sit in for my back. The guy said he has "access" to others and will call me, we shall see. Darn !

I would use this in eat in kitchen since I have a separate dining room where I'd like to find perhaps a Danish modern set.