We just bought a house and my least favorite room is the kitchen, which is sad since I love to cook. We bought the house to move into, but also as an investment and due to work we are not sure how long we will end up being here, but its clear the kitchen needs a major update. Part of the problem is there are four doors into the kitchen, the first an opening from the dining room to the kitchen, one from the back yard/mudroom, one to a half bath, and then one to the basement making the layout super awkward (see photos). note the rolling cart by the windows is from the former owners and is no longer there.

In a perfect world I would love to knock the wall from the kitchen to the dining room, create a deck with big sliding door from the kitchen/ dinning room.... but we would loose a beautiful antique wood built in cabinet and there is a mudroom and a walk out basement that would need to be delt with so that is totally out of the budget at this time.

At first what I was thinking was changing existing counters with quarts, light white top, paint at least the upper cabinets white (walls have already been painted white), floor is being refinished, and then possibly paint the lower cabinets (I feel we have enough beautiful old wood we don't need this newer wood) a green or blue (see photos; leaning towards green), replace the sink, possibly add a back splash? Then change the door to the mudroom with a wood/glass door to help bring more light into the room and make it look better.

I think it would feel brighter and nicer overall with these changes, but with the counter it would probably already cost a couple of grand :( and it doesn't change the fact that the layout sucks and there isn't a whole lot of counter space. the room is pretty small overall, about 9x11 . I would love some additional thoughts and ideals on how to low budget redo this kitchen to make it a comfortable space, could an island fit? we are ok investing some money especially if it makes it way better, but since we don't know how long we will be here and we just bought the house, we don't want to spend a fortune for a brand new kitchen at the moment.