Hate my new kitchen - help me salvage it!

[Truckingalong]

Gloss grey doors (film still on so it looks dull), bleached wood counter. It looked fantastic in my minds eye but looks dated and boring in reality. Still to be done - replace mangy old fridge, remove wooden trim the builders stuck on (loathe them - trim, not builders!) and paint the cream bits that are showing from the original carcass.

I wasn't going to have tiles but I think it needs something to lift it a bit. Any suggestions, before I make it all worse?! Thoughts on any of theses tiles?

Not Ranch Eandh . Autocorrect.

We have the colour changing light strips in our kids bedrooms and they are fab . We got ours from eBay or online some where, I think they were less than £20 . You just plug them in and stick them on with sticky pads ( or we have fastened them to a metal bed frame with cable ties .

It's fab we had sockets fitted above our cupboards when kitchen was done and it's on an led strip and we ran that down behind the end cupboard so we have lighting on the too and underneath the units. Literally plug it on and it works! Remote has settings for 9 different colours or you can have them fading into each other or as the dd's like the disco flashing effect! We bought 2 sets as have cupboard on 2 walls (you can't cut the strip and reuse and if you do cut it be careful to cut I. The sections marked or you'll blow the whole strip) think ours were 5 m lengths and you need the transformer too (comes with it) I'll try and find the eBay link

Some photos ebsy user name (was £40 for 2 sets) a photo to show how they look under cupboard and I'll do another message with some of the colours

More colours

Thanks!

I like the two metro tiles you linked to, or a white or grey metro tile with grey grout. I don't think encaustic style tiles go very well with a handleless, gloss kitchen. A geometric tile would look nice.

I wouldn't add handles if it is a handless kitchen.

Once the old carcass is painted and the trim is taken off it will look fine. I'd replace the fridge with a silver/stainless steel one and have a stainless steel kettle and toaster.

I think anything like these would look lovely. If the room has no natural light painting it in light or bright colours won't make any difference, I'd go with what you like, as long as it tones or contrasts well with the cabinets

Twitt, those first tiles are lovely - where are they from?

I love the Moroccan tiles - and door handles.

The elongated Hexagon tile? They're from an American company, Pratt&Larson. I found them on Pinterest, unfortunately I haven't found any stockists here. I've seen similar but not as nice.

They're lovely. Topps Tiles take note!

Twit - agree, nothing will make it look bigger, so I'm just going with what I think works best.

This is a better picture of the worktop.

Saw this at the weekend and quite liked it.

Those blue tiles are lovely and I like the worktop. What is the flooring like?

This is the floor and you can also see the original kitchen in this pic too.

The floor looks a similar colour to the worktop so really you could have any colour tiles as long as they don't clash with the cupboards. They look similar to the floor and worktop in a pic Dawnmumsnet added which is lovely.

Personally I'd stick with a solid colour in a metro or geometric tile. The moroccan tiles are nice but could make the space seem a bit busy and even smaller.

Is there no way the sink can be altered?

Floor and worktop are quite similar.

I'd have to buy a new worktop and I just can't justify it. I wish I'd stuck to my original idea of having just a sink, no drainer.

I think I'm going to go with plain metro tiles after all. I think I'll get sick of patterned ones very quickly. After seeing the blue ones in the showroom, it's helped me to make my mind up.

Trucking, I have those tiles, but in deep turquoise, seven tiles deep round the kitchen between worktop and bottom of wall cabinets.

They are spiffy, wipe clean and the glass surface bounces light around.

Arm and leg, though.

I think the metro tiles will look great. A single bowl sink probably would have been better but agree it's not worth replacing the sink and worktop to change it now.

I love metro tiles. Could you print out A4 sheets of tile pictures and try pinning them up?

What a bloody great idea Primal! I'm going to do exactly that. Thank you!

love love love the first tiles, beautiful and uplifting.

Also you could paint the cabinet doors if you want to change the grey without spending a fortune?

I took off the cheap plastic which was curling off from my MDF doors using a hairdryer and a wallpaper stripper, sanded them lightly, and painted them with ordinary emulsion. Top coat of matt varnish and they have been perfect for a year. Haven't got photos but went from cream country look kitchen with pine doorknobs to dark grey bottom cabinets and gloss white top ones with stainless steel knobs. With the bonus that if the colours date, I can just sand and paint again.

This thread has been great for me - thank you! I've got a similar problem - sage greeny/grey handless kitchen with white granite worktop fitted in summer last year and I haven't been able to decide on a splash back as I also felt we needed something to 'lift' the room.

DawnMumsnetHQ do you know where those geometric tiles you posted are from?

Twit do you know if there are the UK stockists of any of those geometrics tiles you posted pics of? Like them all.

Zgaze thanks for the link to the Tiles Direct geometric tiles - I've ordered a sample.