Hi Northstar, I had a bit of a stickybeak at your inspiration photos in your ideas photo albums - would that blue colour on those kitchen cabinets work for your laundry? With the timber countertops & white splashback? Although maybe it might be too dark depending on window light or artificial lighting, it could look really beautiful!

Hi again. Finally took the plunge and had the kitchen resprayed. So much lighter and a great job by the professionals. Hard to remember the mustard kitchen now, except the photos remind me.

Hi Khanh.... thanks for this. It appears that by looking at a lot of the Houzz pictures with kitchens on an already existing beige floor, it looks good to have a similar colour cupboard door, but have a darker bench top and splash back/tiles to off-set the beige colour? however any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.....Joanne

Great to hear that you have had a good experience in an unpopular neighborhood. Our first home was an ex-army house in the extremely unpopular South Auckland of New Zealand. All we could afford then... and we lived there happily for seven of eight years. We loved our home and our initial neighbors, many of whom we are still friends with. But as folk moved on and a rougher element moved in, break-ins began happening, clothes stolen off the clothesline, plants, pots, ornaments, swing sets and even a trampoline! It was no longer safe to leave a door unlocked let alone open. The crunch came when youths began to harass our children walking to and from school simply because they believed it was their right to take what they wanted (uniform and shoes, food) and trying to force them to buy drugs, We moved on. I guess it comes down to; is it just an unpopular demographic area? or is it a rough area, gang related residents, drugs on the street etc? The question does not stipulate why an area may be deemed unpopular. I said above to choose the better area and this is what we did second time around, we live in a preferred area of a demographically unpopular rural town in Otago, NZ and love it here. We have renovated and will be mortgage free in our retirement. However we would never again live in an area unpopular because of the crime rate.