Hello Marcelle, I am an interior designer . I can tell you a simple inexpensive way to change the look of your kitchen. Looking at the photo you sent the different cabinet heights , and all the objects on the stove wall are very busy . Your modern house is wanting a cleaner , simple look. I would lower the small cabinets so that the top is at the same height as the others in the room. And put doors on , that will hide the clutter. Next I would do a tile backsplash above the stove , up to the same height. The whole kitchen will be pulled together by the continuous top line. There is a small light wood cabinet with baskets in the foreground . I would paint it white , or the same dark accent color of the cabinets you have. I don't think you would need to change the beams then , they would add interest and drama once everything else was subdued. Lisa

We got the IKEA shelves that are pictured in the butlers pantry photo I posted when we were on holiday in Melbourne, Australia. We don't have IKEA here in New Zealand! Hubby is going back over in May/June so will get him to get more of that sort of thing when there. We would pay about 4x the price for that sort of thing here in NZ. I need to work out what I will do now where the fridge was and there is the angle change (does that make sense?).

Thanks for the replies! My wife suggested we talk to a local real estate agent, so i think that is a good idea... just that Im not sure how helpful they are likely to be if we arent selling yet :) As for saving for our dream house, I dont disagree, however if doing this up nicely over the next ~5 years or so while we live here nets us some extra in the eventual sale, then that of course will help us as well. Interesting thing happened today actually. I got a knock on the door and one of the older neighbours asked if he could take some lemons from the tree. I of course said yes. Anyway he was telling me he had lived in the street for 40 years. I asked him if the house had always looked like this, and he said no that ~30 years ago the old old owner did a massive renovation and pulled off the timber and put up the bricks and gutted the inside of the house. Interesting stuff!

Your suggestions are really greatly appreciated. My town house unit is under complete exterior re-cladding works, prompting quite substantial interior makeover (i.e installtion of ducted air con, replacing wall to wall carpet with timber upstairs, and tiles in open space downstaris, replacing creamy wall paper will be replaced with neutral white paint. So my green kitchen with creamy formica counter (bench) top should go. I don't hate green simply had egounh of it after long 15 yeras! My small U shape kitchen is due for complete makeover, I think! I'll probably go with new cabinets (lower one for microwave) up to the ceiling, when move fridge at the end I'll go with panel with matching colour up to the ceiling, expanding counter top on the other side to the fridge. I guess that removal of the cupboard can be compesated with extension of the counter top so we can fit 3x drawer underneath and cabinets up to the ceiling can provide some useful storage space. Backsplash in same white palette or darker in contrast? Your kind ideas please!