Although you say you have limited budget, the things you said you can do are brilliant enough to freshen up your kitchen. A good paint job is probably the best improvement, perhaps paint your ceilings white and replace your lights with a nice spotlight strip. They are cheaply sourced and illuminates the kitchen really well. As your kitchen cupboards are traditional looking I would go for a modern farmhouse look, they're really fashionable at the moment. And adapts to refurbished kitchens really well. Perhaps you could paint your cabinets a light sage green or a blue grey and keep your dark worktops as they are. It's important not to use too many strong colours as that could suck out more natural light and make it feel smaller. How about changing your door handles, that is a fab and cheap way of updating a kitchen. As for tiles paint them one colour to stop it looking too busy. Your floor tiles would coordinate really nicely to a modern farmhouse look. To help your kitchen look uniform why not invest in the same style/colour small kitchen appliances such as kettle, toaster, small cost but it immediately dresses your worktops. Perhaps you have a stylish large charger plate or deep wide mouth vase to pop your fruit in to dress your kitchen. That would look lovely and make your fruit look interesting. I see you have a shelf for a vintage looking radio and some cookbooks. Why not replace them with a couple of solid looking floating shelves perhaps to match your new painted cabinets and stylishly dress the shelves to add character. Such an exciting project, good luck! http://houzz.com/photos/16560353

I had a similar situation in a house I moved into years ago. I did a quick fix of painting all of the walls, woodword and the cupboards the same shade of cream. Sounds a bit OTT but it really knocked back the cupboards, which in all honesty are not something you want to make a feature out of, and created a calmness to the whole space. In your case, I would go for an off white so that the gang plug wires, radiator pipes and covers hiding the wires for the extractor fan etc., are disguised as much as possible -- that will tie in with the palest of the tiles in the splash back, and then you will have a pretty basic colour scheme of a very place colour and the dark worktop, fireplace and floor, which will stand out more. I think you need more storage with doors -- that bookshelf isn't doing anything for the kitchen. If you could get something in there that could hide lots of clutter -- even if just something cheap from IKEA, that would help greatly. Or work something around the filing cabinet that you have? A huge cheap mirror over the fireplace would bounce some light around too. If you don't want to go for undercupboard lighting, and if you have enough plug points, how about some lamps on the worktop, especially at the FF end with a floor standing lamp at the end with the chair. For the table, I would go for a table cloth and reupholster the chairs if they are not to your taste. A new blind in a much fresher colour would be great. Depending on the colour of your filing cabinet (if you use it), I think a petrol blue could add a nice vintage vibe to the chimney breast, and make more of a feature of it. I would try and go down a vintage/slightly industrial route rather than country. You may have some stuff lurking around that you could use, once you have got the base colours right -- currently it just feels a little cluttered and a bit of a mish mash. Best of luck. Looking forward to seeing some after shots :)

Hi. Have you looked into seeing whether you could get the fridge spray painted? I had a look and some said yes and some no. If not, could you perhaps advertise for a swap as the cream does look a little out of place imo but the White works with the floor.I appreciate its not totally practical but is it also possible to move the fridge perhaps to where the chest is? I like your kitchen and would just change the handles personally. Perhaps a wood splashback? If you stick with the White you could then choose any colour chair.

What sort of look are you going for? If it were my kitchen I would repaint in a neutral throughout, cornforth white or similar. If the existing cupboard doors are white I would leave them (can't tell if white or cream in the photo) If they are cream I'd consider painting them either neutral or possibly a deep blue. Replace the handles with a cup style or a D pull in a metal to complement whichever metal accent you decide to have on the lighting. I'd replace the worktops with a high quality slim laminate, I have duropal calacatta and it often gets mistaken for real marble. I'd be tempted to have an upstand instead of tiles but possibly an antique mirror behind the range. If changing the worktop I'd get rid of the curved open shelves on the base run as I think this dates the kitchen. I'd keep the 12-pane door but paint it black and replace the handle with a black one to mimic a crittall door. I'd reduce the number of open shelves to one each side but take the one on the door wall full width to reach the adjoining wall. Replace the lighting - have a look at Matalan. They often have similar styles to Jim Lawrence. Have a look at DeVol kitchens for inspiration if you like that style.