It's hard to believe that there was a day, that this kitchen combination was beautiful :)

I included a thread that someone had their countertops professionally tiled for only $575 and it gave the appearance of expensive quartz. Since you already know how to tile, it could be that much cheaper.

The curtain has to go. Maybe at most a roman shade to replace it. Sounds like you are pretty handy and could handle that too.

IKEA's handles are insanely cheap which could help a lot.

Good luck on the short sale!

The only critical thing would be to get that carpet out before your first meal and put something in its place.
I'd take down the yellow laminate bs and paint something like a very pale perky green/aqua or stay with white.
I would not invest a single dollar more than absolutely necessary on a kitchen that will be ripped out soon. Keep the hardware unless you can get stuff you know will work with the new planned kitchen (which will be very hard to predict).

Try the Habitat for Humanity Restore near you. It is good for more than just kitchen things. The one by me has a great selection of tile and I even got sheet linoleum for our whole laundry room for $10!

On the bright side, it looks fairly large....

Oh, and lose the curtain....

You're right, that's pretty awful. The good news is that can be "un-awfulled" without a boat load of cash.

Start with the carpet (what was someone thinking?!). Have you looked to see what's under it? It's possible there's a floor that can be used at least for a while. My guess would be a white-type vinyl of the super-sturdy type. With luck. If not, try Craig's List or comparable for some tile. This is a fairly small space and it's possible someone has an adequate amount of tile left from another job. Maybe even somewhere like the ReStore.

Those counters are bad even for the 70s. If you need to keep the surface itself, can you cut off the backsplash part? You could cut it back to just a flat surface, or leave about 3 inches up the wall, leaving the rest of the wall empty. I'm not sure how you do that, but someone will know how. Then you can either try the Rustoleum paint or how about cladding it with a stainless steel sheet? I don't know how much that costs, but people have said it's less costly than other options. Something to think about.

For the backsplash, I'd think about just paint. It looks good and is way less expensive than tile. Maybe you could do some tile in that space above the shelf over the stove.

The cabinets will benefit from a general cleaning. Cabinets by their very nature gather grime as the years go on and respond well to a good cleaning. Also, those curtains could do with being gone. If you want window covering, inexpensive ones are readily found at K-Mart or wherever and will look pretty and fresh.

Good luck on the short sale. That has to be one of the most frustrating ways of acquiring a home I've ever heard about.

Losing the bs will take approx 1/3 of the yellow out because a vertical surface is much more in your face than the horizontal. If you can suck it up and just use the counters as they are (yellow) it will motivate you to save up for the new kitchen. Your friends and family will know that it was not your choice and that you will remove it soon. No one should be judging you on what you inherit from the p.o.s. Try to view it as comic relief and know it will make you appreciate the future counters/bs all the more. Make sure you have plenty of "before" pix for your album.
If ripping the bs down is too much work, then use the paint on that. I'd hesitate to use it on a work surface that you may need to disinfect or scrub, so I would not do the counters with any sort of paint.

BTW - in our office, we call them long sales.....

When you say new laminate counters are too expensive, do you mean even the pre-formed ones in stock at the big box stores? You could probably get those for $250 or so - see link below for one at HD for example.

If that's over budget, then I think tiling those counters will be, too, when you think about everything you need to do that job.

Another couple-hundred dollar option might be to cover the current counters with new laminate sheeting, if you are experienced DIY'ers and the current tops are smooth and level.

If the counters are not too damaged, it might just make more sense to live with them for now. I'm on a tight budget, myself, and spending a few hundred to do something that might get pulled out in a year would not be worth it to me. We've been living with ugly and damaged-in-some-places 1970's laminate counters for a couple of years now for this reason. I don't like looking at them every day, but I like not spending $ until it's the real deal.

I agree with the others that you should get that carpet out asap. I'd probably rather have plywood than ancient carpet in the kitchen.

Here is a link that might be useful: in-stock laminate counters

Oh, thanks so much for the replies so quickly! I also forgot to mention the sink, it's RED! And yes, I think I may be able to at least cut the backsplash off. We are not sure what's underneath that carpeting. There are tiles in the eat-in part of the kitchen that were missing and cracked and I am thinking that maybe the tiles run into the kitchen too but were also badly cracking and that's why the covered them with carpeting?
The worst part about the short sale is that when we went to look at the house the people were home, following us around and watching our every move. We were not able to lift up carpeting in any part of the house, and the woman who owned the home unfortunately passed away, leaving an uncle to take care of the home and sell it. He does not have any info about the homes condition, let alone what's under the carpeting. We are left to wonder what other treasures there may be in the house....did I mention one of the bathrooms has lovely avocado fixtures?

I know that our friends and family will not mind the ugly kitchen, but it drives me crazy that I can paint, landscape, hang pictures and bring in furniture, which will all make a HUGE difference to the dark and dingy house, but I cannot easily fix a yellow countertop!

that yellow would be from the 60's I think. A commune of druggies did it? lol!

and a pink curtain? wow.

what's under the carpet?

try the restore place for a piece of vinyl flooring for now. not shocking yellow either - lol!

I think I'd rather have plain plywood than that ylw counter top... maybe the restore will have some laminate counter top cheap also.

I agree not to spend much money on it now - as little as possible.

When we bought our house 11 years ago I was thrilled to see ugly faux-marble laminate counters in the kitchen and the 3 bathrooms. Yippee!! I could paint them!! I painted them all and enjoyed the process. After a few years the ones in the bathrooms started to peel a little bit around the sinks so I redid them in a different design. I changed the ones in the kitchen just because I repainted the cabinets and I needed to change the color of the counters as well. (I painted the cabinets blue when we bought the house and 5 years later I painted the base cabs black and the wall cabs turquoise.) The kitchen is 30 years old and it's time for a new one. I can't decide on counters because none are going to be as worry-free and as easy to clean and disinfect. I use two cleaning solutions in a row. First I wipe the counters with a mixture of white vinegar and water and I follow up with pure hydrogen peroxide. I bet you could come up with a fun faux stone to go with the red sink. If you need any tips on painting your counters let me know. It's fun to do (in my opinion...)

This reminds me so much of our first house we bought about 14 years ago, yes it too had carpet!! That was the first things that got ripped out right away..ewwh! Then we had bright orange laminate countertops, the cabinets were stained very dark brown. Once the carpet got ripped out (the day we closed) we put down a simple but clean ceramic floor, it made a world of difference.

Then we had the cabinets lightened up, with a little glaze over them, changed the hardware and of course got rid of the orange! We put in a earthy colored corian and you would not have believed the difference (also got all new appliances) we coudlnt' go through the major expense of replacing cabinets but truth is when this was all done, it came out better than we thought possible.

I remember on one of the blogs I visit she redid a kitchen on a really low budget and got the black and white vinyl squares (laminate) and went right over the existing counterops wtih them, and it was beautiful, she did that with the floor. I think I saved the post will look for it and if I find it will come back here and send you the link, lots of good inspiation on the web and blogs, you can also go to remodalistas blog and search for kitchen redo on a budget, they have a lot of stuff like that. Good luck.

rule of thumb from all who have been there:live in the place at least 6 mo before ANY project starts. Example:you mention you'll leave dark cabinets -want to change counter and floor. Now perhaps you find an issue about alignment or condition of cabs you didn't realize upon "walks through". Maybe the sink is the perfect size and in good shape-in porcelin-maybe it can be refinished with a huge cost savings. Or as the season changes-the light thru window changes-so you want a lighter/or darker counter than what you put on before living there. Or some major discovery about flooring-it's a beautiful hdwood underneath-takes refinishing but then the cabs clash-so you end up painting cabs....in other words, HUGE variables. Seriously-WAIT...the kitchen is there, it works-get a fabric remnant at Joanns and replace the red curtain-then use the space.

Put your planned maintenance and renos on a timeline. It looks functional and if it was going to be longer than 24 months until it was reno'd I would invest a $1000 or so. Ikea is changing some of its Bohmolmen sinks this year - I got the single drop in for $15 (regular $89 in Canada) plus about $5 for the drain. With new laminate, new hardware, no carpet and an inexpensive DIY backsplash you probably have something you could live with for 3-5 years while you do other upgrades and save for the kitchen you want. Nothing wrong with a facelift to make it more tolerable and if your DIY it will be good practice for other projects that might be more permanent. You don't want to throw money away but people live with truly awful things too long thinking they are going to do major renos that keep getting pushed back - at two years from now you won't want to do it and in another two years you will wonder why you didn't do something for what amounts to $250 a year that would have made you like the home so much more or that you now have to do to sell it anyway (a bitter pill). Good luck!

If it makes you feel better, I showed my 4 y.o. your kitchen and she said, "That's a nice kitchen!"

The sink is red! That's so cool. Hmm, maybe I need a red sink in my new kitchen. LOL!

I've been looking at this stuff for some accents in my kitchen. You can turn that counter into a "stainless steel" counter for probably about $100. But I think painting it white would look nice, too.

(I tested this stuff and put up a review here someplace, not too long ago.)

Hmm, who makes red sinks these day. ;)

Here is a link that might be useful: Faux Steel

I must be weird - I like the yellow counters!

I'll bet that was a really nice kitchen in the 70's. It even has a paneled dishwasher, if I can see that correctly.

I had a house built in the 70's and the kitchen was really cheap and had those wonderful two-tone "copper" appliances.

I would definitely determine how long you'll be living with it before you can get the kitchen you want. Then decide if you can live with what you have for now.

If not, I would update in the following order:
- floors- get the carpet out, it holds stains & odors (as I'm sure you know). You can get inexpensive sheet vinyl at lowes/menards/home depot for the time being. You might even be able to find a remnant for less.

- counters/backsplash - paint. That's all I'd do if the counters are in decent enough shape (meaning they aren't falling apart and can support the sink). Go with a neutral color and you won't have to worry about matching the sink.

If the appliances are in working order, keep them for now. If not, try Craigslist for replacements. We just sold a 6 year old perfectly nice dishwasher to a couple for $150.

I wouldn't waste time/money tiling the counters or backsplash if you're going to rip them out eventually anyway.

Intense color. It's great that you can keep the cabinets. I think that painting the countertops and BS white will do a lot to lessen the eye-pain and will save you a lot of cash and time. You can get an Ikea sink for $99 (I have the single bowl white ceramic Domsjo and like it) or less and eBay always has great deals, especially for 'pickup only' if you look hard enough.

I agree with a lot of what's been said: ditch the curtain and the carpet and see where that leaves you. I would leave the countertop alone until your big remodel. If you're not able to cut out the backsplash without damaging the counter, why not glue up some cheap beadboard panels? I think they run less than $20 for a 4'x8' sheet, and I bet you'd use less than 2 sheets for the entire backsplash.

I thought I had the most ugly kitchen. I see that I am incorrect.

My alarm bell went off when you said "70s" and "tile under carpet". Asbestos tiles were used during that time. Simply covering them up was an accepted remediation technique for a while, but not now. Have they been checked?

Hey, this kitchen brought back memories of my kitchen in the new house I built in 1977.....and I loved those bright lemon counter tops....so cherry in the morning when I went in for my first cup of coffee....so those were happy memories~~

First, I would tackle the carpeting on the floors...nasty stuff, but was rather popular "back then". See how good the underlayment is and you can get some laminate flooring or stick-down vinyl tile very reasonably.

If you can lay tile....HD has some black granite 12x12 tiles ($2.99) that you can put in yourself....and save that red sink!...put in some HD or Lowe's tiles (the white 4x4s are only about .14 cents or their subway tiles aren't too pricey)...get some inexpensive cabinet pulls on line or box store....you could throw in some red accents.... And, La-La...you could have a very attractive kitchen to live with for a few years while you save up cash for a different one.

When you mentioned painting countertops (and also your avocado green bathroom), it brought back memories! My previous house was built in the 70's and it had some cosmetic challenges as well.

I painted my old laminate counters and even found a decor that (I think) worked well with the avocado fixtures. I wrote a post about it on the Decorating side a few years ago, but here is the link below with details on how I did the faux granite finish. It held up great and was one of several things our buyers commented very positively on.

If you're short on funds, definitely look into just priming, painting, and sealing as I describe in the post; it was quite inexpensive that way. I don't know what the Rustoleum finish runs, but you don't have to have their special products, just a high adhesion primer and good topcoat.

Here is a link that might be useful: Painting countertops and Avocado bathroom redo

I would not tile the floors until you know what you want to do down the road. We changed our tile out when we bought the house to install a gas line to the island so we could change out the cooktop after we moved in without all the mess. By the time we changed the appliances, we also changed the layout and the cabinets. Now we want to change the floors, and it's going to be a pain. Even if you put down cheap tile yourself, it's a lot more work and expense to take them up and start over.

If you paint the counters a light neutral and remove the pink curtain, that red sink might actually look good. Funky, but good.

Was the previous owner Asian? DH told me about a house he saw once with bright pink and bright yellow carpet and the Asian owners told the realtor they wouldn't change them. They were taking a huge hit on the price of the house instead.

I do agree that the flooring is the biggest concern, but maybe you can do a temp that is easier to replace when you get ready for a bigger redo. Adhesive vinyl tiles or planks? A click and lock floor?

OMG a Steelers kitchen!! I would've loved that once upon a time!

Definitely I would start with taking up the carpet. We had a house that had "kitchen" carpet (more like commercial or "indoor/outdoor" carpet") We ripped it up and had new plywood put down, then tile. I am more appalled at the carpet than having a Steelers kitchen haha!

A lot of great advice on here. As the owner of BestKitchenGuide.com, I wanted to throw in my two cents. As many have mentioned, you should remodel the floors. Remove the carpeting and check the condition and material underneath. Consider putting in tile, cork, or even parquet, which are all fairly inexpensive options. A lighter color will complement your dark cabinets and bring more light into the kitchen.

The bright yellow counters can be resurfaced with another material. Nowadays, there are laminate options available which look a lot like stone, but which are still fairly inexpensive. In addition, look into getting a new set of handles for the cabinets. I would go with knobs rather than pulls, as they fit better with the raised panel doors.

A new light set of counters and floors will freshen up the kitchen and make the cabinets work. Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: www.BestKitchenGuide.com - Find More Info There!

I could deal with anything but the carpeting in the kitchen. It seems unsanitary. Pull up a corner. WHat's there? Probably plywood.... You can get flaoting laminant floor that looks like tile or wood at homedepot for $3sf. You can install it with a good pair of scissors. The painted countertops are a great fix. Let us see what you go with. Good luck with your closing.

Equest17, that paint looks great. Good work!
Anele- that's adorable!

First of all, I would remove the carpet and find out what is underneath. If money is of a concern, I would get a pretty sheet vinyl in a light color or even go with those vinyl stick tiles that look so nice and are easy to install.

I would either paint or cover the yellow counter with laminate since there are so many nice ones out there that don't have to cost a lot. I would choose a light color.

I would add hardware.

Congratulations on your new home!

If you are truly going for a total redo in just two years I wouldn't do much either! I agree that the carpet is unsanitary and has to go. I hope that you find some sort of flooring underneath that you can live with.

We did a facelift on my mother's kitchen in her out of state home. She had orange countertops and a bright yellow beast of a sink. My cousin supervised the whole thing. He hired a company that came in and sprayed a hard coating on all of the countertops and also the sink. I have not seen it in person yet, but it looks great in pictures. The countertops look almost like quartz and the sink is now black. It cost around $500 for the entire project with a lifetime warranty. And the kitchen was considerably larger than yours, so the price would be less. I wish I knew what the process was called. I can try to find out for you if you want?

Anyway, that is all that I would do. Remove the carpet and cover the yellow countertops. I think that alone should give you a kitchen you can live with for a few years. I would not put money into things like hardware etc. Save that money for the total makeover!

Best of luck! I just got rid of my bright blue laminate - what were we thinking in the 70's and 80's???

Even if you can't live with the floors under the carpet, go with a cheap linoleum type flooring material. this will be much easier to pull up in a few years than tile and it will be much better than the carpet.

OK, I must be in the minority here, but I LOVE the bright, saturated sunshine yellow! I'd change the color of the cabinetry because the dark stain is just too dark. I can see a steel grey or medium grey instead of that dark, dreary, oppressive brown. I'd trash all the knick-knacks on top of the cabinetry and put another shade of grey on the walls showing up there. Ditch the crunchy curtain for a 'fat-slat' blind in white or another grey. I'd put the microwave above the range and lose all that clutter on top the counters. The only other splash of color could be from a dish towel or swirly glass fruit bowl (I'm thinking cobalt blue & fire orange). I see Fiestaware setting the table. I'd make that color the STAR of the room. Brushed silver metal hardware; not shiny, to compliment. It's not clear, but your sink appears colored. You can find a relatively inexpensive stainless sink pretty easily. Paint, sheet vinyl & cabinet hardware are some of the least expensive items - GO FOR IT!

cienza brought up a great color suggestion....grey and yellow is so "in" right now and I love the look. I also happen to like the lemon yellow...just work with it for now and concentrate on getting rid of the carpeting.