It looks like you have a daylight globe in kitchen pendant and warm light globes in the dining. Warm light brings out yellow tones. I would start by changing all gloves in house to daylight globes. It take a bit of getting used to but will make a big Change for low cost. It is a trick stylists do to get even light through a house.
Put away as much clutter as you can including drying dishes straight away. It will make you feel better and space bigger.
Then I would paint the cabinets white. Unless you want to go to expense of replacing benchtops or having them veneered.
you will need to sand polish off the cabinets. Start with uppers. And test it on the back of a door to get the application and colour right. It will be a lot of work.

I'm weird , and take risks , but I'd actually try and keep some sign of woodgrain in the cupboard doors ( paint will make them look like generic smooth particle board ones -- from the 1970's ? ) . Me -- I'd go charcoal , but I'd suspect most other people would go for a reddish brown stain .

Charcoal would darken things , BUT what I'd then do is take all the rear wall tiles off and replace them with subway tiles . Again , most normal people would go for white , but I'd be tempted to do a bright yellow , and hope the white of the stove , fridge and microwave will balance it all -- white tiles would be the safe choice , but maybe too much then ?

That single light in the kitchen looks low , and of course pretty blahh -- maybe some LED downlights , or if you want a lower roof , how about a sheet of ply , chamfered corners , stained the same charcoal as the cupboard doors , dropped to height on wires , with the LED downlights mounted in that ?

Again , the kitchen floor tiles look older style , so look at replacing or re-colouring -- maybe white gloss tiles would lighten the room , or terracota or charcoal . I once re-did some tiles using oil-based black paint , thinned about 2 to 1 with turpentine and brushed and dabbed on and left to dry -- it lasted way better than I thought it would !

painting the spaces would change the look but probably won't make the spaces feel any more spacious..would you consider rearranging walls or cabinets and appliances? if so, a plan of the house with dimensions could inspire some other suggestions

I'd like to see the space decluttered and then take photos along with a floor plan, that light is depressing, how tall are the ceilings. I don't mine the floor tiles as I can see them. Any Budget that will give an Idea of what is possible, the before and afters should look amazing, cheers

I rather like your old kitchen. It’s of its time. Funky door knobs, timber looks ok (I can’t believe I’m saying that) . But in these pictures the big white sticking out fridge and rather drab white stove/oven dominate. If you are in to painting, I’d be tempted to paint the fridge dark using the specific product for enamel. Or relocate it if possible. Or replace with a darker one. Refocus on the coloured elements. And possibly use a more age appropriate muted laminate paint, which actually lasts for ages. Swap the stove for a darker model. It looks out of place. Get some/lots of underbench lighting. And better ceiling lights. I like the idea of uplighting on top of cupboards, though I know yours are currently filled in.
Clear the decks. And embrace the 70s until a more complete rework is possible.

Just quickly, I would build the fridge and MW in with white panels (that MW looks quite dangerous at that height). Paint the wall the same white as the panels from bunnings. The other wall could be a soft green. The hanging light is one that used to be seen over dining tables, it can be moved up and down, so just by moving it up will help, some easy to install underbench lights from Bunnings or Ikea..

New timber laminated bench tops from Bunnings are affordable and come in different woods. I wouldn't paint the timber cabinets and love those 70's handles

The tiled floors can be covered with Vynl planks, the installer would need use a special leveling compound fill the grout lines between tiles, A neighbour has recently done this and it looks beautiful, it all comes back to budget

I reckon go one step further than brizcs -- get an almond coloured fridge , and one of those chocolate brown or avocado coloured stoves , with the flip-over 'digital' clock . . . . . . . . . . .

This might help you visualize possible changes, working with the timber panelling you can use what ever colours you like, I think you mentioned pink tones?, Building the fridge in with white panels makes the fridge more up to date cheers

Hi guys, wow thank you for being such champs with all the great advice!

Even my partner, the handyman of the household, is chuffed we found this site with such great community.

The room does feel overwhelming as we took over the property (rental so not keen to go full out with ripping things out to replace them) with appliances included. For 3 years we've just been prioritising our career and family (both of ours are overseas) and with The Great Pause of 2020 happening, there is a lot of space to tackle what has been too overwhelming for us.

UPDATES!

We will slowly shift into kitchen reno gear gradually, but looking forward to share gradual changes to the space.

[budget]

To be honest, it's a rental property where we don't plan to live in 2 years down. I'd say $500 or below, but knowing most of the $$ is going into organising and new shelving (thinking of new shelves to put 1L airtight jars for all our grains/ pasta/ baking/ nuts - as they are currently all stashed away in the cabinet).

So no installers, just me and the old school way of self taught youtube videos and essential (for my sanity) trips to Bunnings!

[clutter]

Great honest feedback, we do have too much crap lying around. I've cleared out two basket worth of stuff and once I reorganise the cabinets, most of the stuff on the bench will disappear. This will now be a monthly habit + the idea that if something doesn't have its place in the kitchen, it wont even enter the space.

[light]
The horrendous shade is gone, thanks for helping me convince the man. It feels so good to have the 1/4 top section of the room brightened. Feels like there is more room to utilise.

It's quite tall as our already considered tall step ladder can only let us reach the top of the upper cabinets. What should we do with all the extra space near the ceiling/

We are thinking to install some floating shelves and just put plants, which wouldn't require us to check in every 4-5 days so occasionally climbing the heights is fine. I can anticipate accidental drops already, but no kids at home so can deal with cleaning up shards.

@Kate fantastic call on the light in the dining area, hoping to extend space as best I can. Tbh, would love to take off the wall, but don't want to damage the wiring and also can't be bothered as above point on rental.

[painting]
Yes! Colour was definitely one of the biggest road block I've had. White is definitely going up first, it works as a great base and if we want to change up the tone we can just paint over it.

Glad to hear advice on working with the existing colours, i love a good vintage, but whenever there is more than 4 colour in a room (green from plants don't count), it gets a bit too much for me. (Happy to hear blush and charcoal are approved).

Perhaps let's revisit the colour brainstorm once I've done a white paint on. It will help you guys visualise what better as I gradually clean up the space.

I won't be retiling. Probably won't even be doing a tile paint. I've heard horror stories on tile paint and how they decided to just retile afterwards. Partner is keen though, open to ideas after the white paint is on.

@siriuskey i love the idea of soft green, it looks wonderful in a friend's kitchen where there wasn't much light. She actually paired white ceiling light with a soft 24/7 tabletop warm light, it somehow worked quite well. If anyone has any advice on colour pairing, I'm all ears. Atm I'm relying on https://coolors.co/ Great color visualisation tips btw

@Kate totally would have missed the testing on back of door bit, great reminder.

@User partner laid down a verdict that the timber bench top and the black bench top is staying unfortunately, but I will lobby again once the white paint is on. I think I will weigh in on what I would like to tackle between the bench tops or the fridge/ stove as these are quite dominant (as pointed out by @brizcs). Will call on advice for tile painting if we get to that stage. If I am to start with the floor tiles there are bits to fix too, 1-2 tiles have somehow loosened up and one's even broken.. trying to tackle small bits with big changes first like @Kate suggested!

@siriuskey the 70s cabinet timber definitely has its own style, I may try to paint that massive board above it white first, then decide if I'd still like to go ahead with the cabinet timber painting. Will look into transforming the fridge and stove, but also aligning w budget.

@brizcs actually think i'll have a look into this rather than the paneling, thanks for the tips on where i can start my research on. Definitely not a fan of the colours of the fridge and stove. Unsure about a new stovetop bc our current one is broken (oven don't work but stove does), however landlord is being a prick and would rather get her friend (uncertified) in to try fixing it. They popped over to try to figure it out themselves but we put a plug to it as we don't want them both to explode in our kitchen. So the stovetop is unfortunately stuck, heck I probably have to check to see if I can even do any work on it as there may be some restrictions to prevent bad gas fire x the paint/finish combo.

[under bench lights]

This is where I'll need some advice.

I've never installed this before and am stuck with power source options. Without getting tradies in to rewire into the walls, my only options seems like batteries. We do have a power socket of four (on the other end of the bench, prefer to not drag wires all over the place), however 2 are taken permanently and the remaining two I would like to keep free. Don't mind changing out chargeable batteries now and then. I'm envisioning it being a simple task of stick LED light strip + stick battery box (maybe paint it to 'hide' it), please advise if I'm being too naive here.

NEW IDEAS

[Theme: open access design]

This means shelves with all our jars out. Mainly to see all the food we already have so we use them up before we hoard too much. Same goes for things like knives (magnet strips), spatula (hung up to rail with grids), pots/ pans, wine etc.

I very much like a functional retro vibe for my kitchen I don't need things to be glossy and full marble. I like the industrial practical way of seeing where things are and knowing what tools i have immediately.

Thoughts?

Will send through photos of the side I didn't show, it's where the sink is. And the sink will be a whole new category itself which I'm not touching till a later stage.

[floating shelves on tiles]

I have forgotten to mention that I'm hoping to install this below my cabinets on the left for spices.

For the right cabinet I will either install mug hooks or move the mugs entirely to previously mentioned shelving option.

Will definitely add LED lights under the cabinets and under the spice shelf.

Again, thank you for letting me tickle your brain on this, the project has just got a lot less stressful thanks to you guys :)

Could replace the butcher block bench to match the black bench and this would reduce the timber effect of the cabinets allowing you to leave those as is,