Help Me Decide On My Kitchen Redo

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Well I started taking things down off the cabinet doors to see what ideas came to me.

This is the latest look…

I’d like you all to weigh in on what you think would look best, and then I’ll try to decide. I keep thinking I’ve got it figured out and then I change my mind.

First I took the middle door off the cabinets above the microwave.

Then I took the decoration off the other two cabinets so I’d get a better idea. Then I wondered if perhaps I might want just one door off, the middle one.

See that long ugly cord along the countertop? That goes to my refrigerator. Maybe I should paint it white.

Every time I rearrange in this space I have to find ways to cover up this ugly cord.

Then after I got the door off and stood back, I noticed that the other two doors don’t sit flush. In other words, they don’t line up with the space. It’s not very noticeable in the photo.

But the space is wider at the bottom near the black knobs and narrower at the top. Which drives me bonkers.

I put a few things in the open space where I took the door off just to get an idea of what it would look like.

I’ll have to fix the nail holes on the other two cabinets if I leave them up and probably paint them as well.

Or I could take all three of them off and not be troubled by the crooked doors. Let me tell you these doors are heavy! I leaned the door in the hall overnight and somehow Ivy knocked that heavy thing over and scared me half to death.

Here is what my kitchen looked like when I had the doors off before. Now looking at all the chaos makes me rather dizzy. For some reason it didn’t then.

How on earth, I ask myself now, did I manage to even go in this kitchen with all the color going on? Must be that I’ve aged about 5 years and my system simply can’t take it now.

The countertops are covered with black contact paper. And the black and white checks are also contact paper.

Some of you have asked what happened to that ICE sign on my refrigerator. I was trying to gently take it down when I was painting the rest of the fridge and it tore. Then with all the glue on the back it became impossible to smooth out.

I’ve looked everywhere since and cannot find that ICE decal. I bought it off Etsy and that company closed down a long time ago.

Then I had this for the last 4-5 years…

This look was without the red microwave on the counter. I may just leave it off the counter this time. I think it looked far less busy without it.

Now for what to do with the countertops. I’m tired of them, and I’ve got to fix a few places that got dinged up and that means it won’t match what is currently there.

What I can’t decide is whether I can handle the aggravation of putting contact paper over them again. That takes patience, of which I have little.

Or I could go with something like the GianiGranite that is in the above photo, but use a different kit. If you have any ideas, let me know please.

My plan is to update the knobs, update the countertops and probably paint the wall between the upper and lower cabinets white or use those peel and stick tiles. I like white subway peel and stick tiles, so that is an option.

This is a rental kitchen, so I can’t just tear everything out. I don’t think they’ll really notice if I went with another GianiGranite kit on the countertops.

Or I could use contact paper that could be taken off should I move, which I’m really not planning to do.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?