Hi Magic M new kitchens have more drawers than doors. They also have soft closers on doors and drawers, as well as full extension runners on the drawers. Your kitchen is therefore immediately showing its age because it clearly has more doors and is probably missing the other elements I mentioned that are considered standard in today's functional kitchen. So it really comes down to your budget. If you have the budget I would replace the whole kitchen with cabinets (more drawers than doors) with a shaker style profile. Custom cabinets to the ceiling. Manmade stone such as Caesarstone benchtops. You could think about the same stone on the splashback as subway tiles are on their way out. If your budget doesn't run to a new kitchen then the Annie Sloan chalk paint as suggested is a good option on both the existing cabinets and the new add on ones. Any of your suggested colours in muted tones would work.

Hi, paint cabinets white, off white, deep navy blue, greige or moderately dark grey. two tone would also look ok - light/white on top, darker on bottom. Maybe choose paint based on other colours used in house. Please do not paint sage!!!! replace the cabinet handles with modern chrome T handles or similar. Replace curtain with white venetian. paint/cover brick. get rid of brick next to stove and replace with a panel. tile paint tiles white and extend to behind stove. or get creative and add a nice geometric feature tile that compliments the colours behine stove and exhaust fan. put down some cheap water proof wood look laminate click flooring. consider adding same geometric print to breakfast bar and add a couple of cute high stools from kmart or ebay. Change fan to chrome or spray paint silver. replace beam light with pendant light, maybe glass to be safe or something that is modern, meracrtor is good brand, or even just a modern round oyster type light. Cheers goodluck

Colour is so personal . Myself , I actually would keep the existing blue tiles if possible , as opposed to going white . Assuming you aren't going to have colourful appliances on display , white tiles and white walls and white doors and white windows and a stainless range and hood and oak benchtops and floor doesn't get me at all excited ! In fact , look at the pictures . Imagine you aren't changing anything , EXCEPT you have removed the top row of tiles everywhere they don't 'hit' a cupboard , and replaced in a deeper blue , and you almost would have saved $5k ! A bit of a lift , a newer look -- the existing bits all look fine and usable to me .

To me it looks like the wood has been sanded back and finished with a tinted wax but I can’t discount the pictures being edited to remove the orange tone or showing up different on the screen. Are you sure the downstairs floor is hardwood? I would find a spot that you could do a few test sands and stain/wax tests.