Please help me decorate my kitchen!

[SnuffleGruntSnorter]

Currently can't afford a whole new kitchen or to re-tile, so I'm hoping for suggestions of colours to go with these tiles. It's quite a small kitchen, wooden counter tops and white shaker-style fronts.

It's currently painted a blue/grey colour that's quite nice but is looking very tired now. Any ideas?

What you've posted looks nice! Mine is grotty- really grim, falling apart and cluttered and hard to clean. But I'm limping on before getting the whole back of house remodelled in age months time. In the meantime I'm just trying to keep it clear and as clean as possible. I emptied and cleaned the fridge last week!

Just reread! You're looking for a paint colour for the walls? What about a slightly darker than you'd first go for calico lineny colour?

Wow that's a nice lookin fridge, I'm going to do the same! I like the calico idea, the previous owners painted around their notice board etc and then took it with them so it's currently very patchy - I think anything would be an improvement

You have no idea how grotty it was! The fridge will sadly go in the remodel as its a very funny shape (Australian) and 10 years old- it would be frustrating to build around it and then have to replace it.
Do you have to paint the ceiling? I've redecorated rooms up to the picture rail but no further...
Buy loads of masking tape and those plasticky dust sheets to protect everything and get going!
How are the work tops? I periodically sand mine down with a £15 sander from Argos and reoil them. Do that before you paint!

The work tops are nice, luckily. The units themselves are old and need replacing but that's not happening any time soon. The doors are newer and in reasonable nick. So in hoping a splash of paint will make a big difference. I'm going to paint the ceiling to make it nice and fresh but I'm dreading sanding - it's got four doors to other rooms and they're all covered in yellowing gloss. I think fresh satinwood will look much better, but I hate the prep work!

Have you got your dream kitchen all planned out for the remodel?

You've inspired me! I've just spent an hour sanding the main worktop and I'll post a picture to show you my grotty kitchen. I'm planning an IKEA yellow/ white handless replacement.

Great effort! Maybe I'll sand the work tops too then whilst I'm sanding all the awful gloss off the doors. I am very jealous of your new kitchen plans

Have you got a local door sander? We had ours done in London for £15/ door including removing and replacing them. I think they dip them in something caustic. Then you've got the problem of the surround though...
The worktop now oiled doesn't look great tbh. But I'm doing it more as an experiment to see whether we should get wood again. I love it but we really don't look after it well enough. That's the nice thing about having a trashed kitchen you can experiment with what works!
The picture shows the non integrated dishwasher as we didn't want to pay££ for an integrated one when the kitchen was on borrowed time and the fairy replacing the cooker good bulbs...

I actually prefer non-integrated ones as the integrated ones in our last house were a bit crap - the fascia started peeling where it kept getting hot from the dishwasher. I guess if you have a decent appliance with a good seal that's probably less of an issue though.

I'll probably just get on with the sanding myself to be honest, I quite like the satisfaction of having done it. I just don't like the actual process...