Hey Marilyn, have you made a choice? A navy would look nice!

Hi Claire, It really depends what your budget is. If you can't live with the current look until you can afford a total refit, I would agree with girlguides. A lick of paint and new bench tops will bring this baby into the now. Laminex has a new bench top range that looks great and fits the "budget" brief. A couple of pendant lights over the bench top would look good as would some thick floating shelving above the microwave...better yet, if you can stretch to some new cabinetry to get the microwave off the bench, that would free up some bench space and improve function. I actually like the brick! I was doing a houzz search for a solution to one of my many dilemmas and saw an island with brick ends. It looked amazing! Good luck!

I absolutely love my granite. You just have to be careful not to clean it with anything acidic like vinegar or Orange Power. I wipe it down with a soapy sponge after I wash the dishes and then polish with Method brand granite cleaner. Comes up a treat. It's tough and heat resistant but I do use trivets for hot pans just in case.

you could put a wash (e.g a lime wash)over the top of the doors to lighten them up a little and get rid of the orange tone to a certain degree, that way you dont have to spend too much time stripping them back and prepping them, you will still see the grain as well, unfortunatley the orange will always be visible through a wash, unless you stain them darker. You could go totally left field and stain them more of a walnut brown, that can look quite modern and dress it up with handles, that way you will still see the grain. The inside of the doors wont be flat, been a raise panel, they will more then likely have a 3mm lip and still have the arch on the inside.