Regardless of whether you're keeping your cabinets/countertops I'd take down the uppers between your kitchen and family room. Not much storage there and it'll seem more open without them.

Removing the divider from your peninsula would help as well.

We just finished a major cabinet painting project ourselves and it was a lot of work and not for the faint of heart. We just didn't want to pay someone else a lot of $ to do something we could do ourselves.

Agree 200% with all of that, the previous homeowners built it all themselves so alot of interesting things happened..

We purchased a house from a guy who thought he was a master craftsman. He was not and I sympathize.

I would definitely pull down those uppers above the sink while you are deciding what to do. What is the budget for your project?

Honestly budget not sure probably 15 to 20ish

And investigate the soffit to pull it down. If you carefully remove those small uppers and the set over the air fryer, you can donate them to Habitat. Remove the soffits and repair the drywall. It's a small enough segment to be diy at a very low cost in materials.

With electrical, plumbing, and materials, reconfiguring that bar/counter run could eat up a good chunk of your budget. Can you tell if the tile runs under it?

There is so much you could do with this space. However you will need a budget to go with it.

With out having dimensions or anything - a full renovation - all new cabinets, counters, remove soffit, reconfigure - you should be planning on $45K - $60K without appliances. Make sure to get with a good designer who can maximize your space and sell you materials that fit your budget.

You will also need a good contractor of course.

Removing the soffits, the cabinets above the peninsula and putting in recessed lighting will really brighten the space.

The first things are to really decide how much you are comfortable to spend on the project to do it now vs exploring how much it would be to do the whole thing ( easier and less expensive in the long run ) and seeing how you can finance it or spend a year saving like crazy.

Good luck!!

This house is so big and so interesting I just need a pro to come and help me figure this out so I can budget accordingly

I'm more in the camp..leave it alone until you ponder a bit more. the cabs look in good shape. I'd be more inclined to change the floor....the cabinets are lots more attractive than the floor. an interesting new light fixture would help if you cant get a lighting plan right now due to uncertain plans. The oak is classic / the floor is ugly.

We had similar soffits and peninsula with cabinets that obstructed our view to the BR and backyard in our U-shaped kitchen. I hated how I had to duck down to see the BR, and I'm not tall. We also had a 3' wide, floor to ceiling wall at the end of the peninsula (it housed electrical outlets and wiring. The floor did not go under the peninsula. We had all removed and a large island put in, which dramatically opened up the space, but it was all a part of a major kitchen remodel (new everything, except tile floors, which we had done just a couple of years before (were able to get additional 20 x 20 tiles for parts of the new floor)). I only bring this up because our kitchen remodel cost was 9x your budget, and that was 14 years ago. I cannot imagine doing much with 15-20K.

HOWEVER, I think a good place to start would be to remove the overhead cabinets and the soffit (on the right in the first picture), then replace all countertops, and making that peninsula all one level. This would leave the rest of your cabinets, but I don't think you have the budget to replace, or even paint them, now, and I'd leave that for when you might want to remodel the entire kitchen (including cabs, floors, appliances). There might be ductwork in the soffit, too. Just removing the cabinets and leaving the soffit will look odd, but even that would really open your kitchen to the lighter dining space. Good luck to you in this journey!

If this is new to you then a waiting period is always a good idea. IMO 3- months min. to just figure how the house functions for you. Houses often function differently than you might think when you move in An indpedant kitchen designer is really what you need but your budget will not be enough . So draw a to scale floor plan of the kitchen. Use grapg paer and swhow every windows, doorway where the doorways lead if the pulumbing and gas lines are not easily moved from like in a basement, then show us where those are too. I assume new appliances so we need the size of those . Post the drawing in jepeg format here in a comment All items dealing with this space should be in one post DO NOT start another post on this subject.THese pics will show you what happesn when you remove those hanging cabinets between the kitchen and DR just to give you an idea.

herbflavor, I mean this in the friendliest and most positive way possible, but I want some of whatever crack you are smoking. Those cabinets aren't more attractive than *anything*, including leprosy and blobfish. They belong in a museum of Bad Early '70s Design.

I agree with everyone who's suggested removing the cabinets over the peninsula and the countertop divider. If the cabinet boxes are in good shape, normally refacing them might be a good option (less labor than repainting, cheaper than all-new cabinetry), but I have a feeling yours are nonstandard sizes. Have you looked at IKEA's cabinets? They're pretty affordable and companies like Kokeena and Semihandmade even make it possible to give them a more custom look.

I actually like the kitchen and the separation the upper cabinets give you. Are you planning on adding the faux marble on the other counters? I think it would be better to have all the counters look the same (either remove the faux marble or add it to the other counters). I think that maybe creating zones in the kitchen would help. Perhaps all the drink things on the side cabinets (coffee maker, blender etc). The bread and toaster should go together etc. I would put away any of the seldom used appliances. Style your counters like you would if you were selling your house - cover plugs with a nice cutting board, put out a vase of flowers, put out nice placemats on the island etc. We did a $200 mini reno in one kitchen we owned and it improved the look by a lot! It's amazing what you can do to improve the look without spending a lot. We saved up for a full kitchen renovation about 5 years later. Your kitchen is in much better shape than our old kitchen.

I think you have an amazing space there. I wouldn't do anything until I could afford to remodel the whole thing, except maybe replace the countertops with prefab laminate.

In the meantime, the overhead counters don't offend me. We had them growing up and stored ALL of the dishes there. It was very convenient.

I actually kind of like my floors we've been here almost 6 years now fixing boring things like heat, ac, and tons of windows ect. But the tile doesn't go under the island so that's a problem I will be replacing all floors if we do this, you can actually see 5 different flooring when your in the kitchen and bugs the life out of me. Thank you all for suggestions ! I think I will start with upper cabinets,  and yes for now I'm finishing the countertops with the sticker paper, ps it's horrible to apply for anyone curious