Orange/antique pine kitchen - would it put you off?

[greenlotus]

I'm wondering whether to update our kitchen before putting the house on the market.

The kitchen is from about 1998, MFI style, full-on deep orange antique pine, ornate mouldings, blue Rangemaster, multicoloured tiles, terracotta floor, cheap speckly laminate worktop. The overall effect is a bit too country-theme-pub.

It's fairly sound and the layout is reasonable but I think it looks so horribly dated it drags the rest of the house down.

I think for about £1k I could paint the units a nice heritage colour, replace the doors with Shaker ones and put on a wood style worktop and at least it would then look light and contemporary if not brand new.

What do you think? Any other ideas? Would wall to wall pine put you off?

I would just paint the units first & see how it looks then. You would be surprised at how conservative lots of people are about interiors - I am very interested in interior design but a huge percentage of people are not and would think your kitchen is fine. I am always astounded that people are still choosing to install wooden kitchens like yours though they would be considered passé by interiors magazines...

So I wouldn't rush out & change the handles, worktops or tiles just yet...

I would change the blind though...

I inherited an orange pine kitchen like yours & painted it a F&B colour & changed the knobs to large wooden ones I painted black. It ended up looking like one in the window of a posh local kitchen shop!

I didn't bother changing the worktop as the colour was ok with the new paintwork but did paint over the tiles but they were truly hideous. Reckon yours are liveable with...

... I like it. But I'm an old fart and like pine. It is a bit orangey, true. And my taste doesn't run to the multi-coloured tiles, though I like rustic tiles generally. To my mind, it's loads better than one of those melamine/formica cheapy jobs from the end of the 80's with recessed handles at the bottom of the doors, if you know the ones I mean.

Easy to sand and paint though, which I'd be tempted to do to avoid the orange. At least the door mouldings aren't those ones with the archy bit at the top of the frame.

My word, your kitchen is bloody gorgeous compared to what I have lived with for the past six years and counting ...

It wouldn't put me off becasue we like to put in our own kitchens (in fact, a horrible kithcen is a selling point for us, 'cos then we don't feel like we are paying for someone else's expesnive taste ) but I think we are the exception.

I would try sanding and painting the doors first (as someone suggested, a nice cream/off white ), and new handles before deciding to replace them. You can do one or two and then judge for yourself whether it will work (although you are of course then committed to doing the rest or replacing the doors if you don't like it ) I agree about the wooden worksurface: it'll give the kitchen a modern "lift". With the cream doors, I think the coloured tiles would look OK - but I agree about changing the Roman blind. A simple plain roller blind - or even (if you can get an Ikea one that fits) a wooden venetian blind.

It wouldn't put me off. In fact we have a vile kitchen in the house we have just bought! All dark oak and ornate. Quite depressing but it didn't put me off as the bones of the house were right.

I had better take the picture down! We are not looking at selling now as the other house proved unsuitable, but did have an agent round to value, he said he wouldn't change anything as long as it was clean and tidy!

Instead we hopefully get to do our extension instead so the units will probably end up on ebay eventually .

Have to say, I made the blinds (there are 3 in the room and they are thick and lined for insulation), the fabric was bought for economy so it was a bit of a compromise, but it's interesting so many people have mentioned it. Is it just because they're patterned? You do get accustomed to things when you've lived with them for five years. The next ones will clearly need to be plainer.