My Mother's Kitchen: The Beginning

So the kitchen at my mother's house has seen better days. It's rather outdated. And since I have been keeping up with blogs, seen lots of kitchen make overs, have a good imagination and am slightly ignorant about how hard this might be, I've decided that my mothers Christmas present this year will be a makeover for her kitchen. I unfortunately don't have any GREAT pictures of just the kitchen, so bear with me here.

Actually, several years ago while home from college for Christmas, I repainted the kitchen. The kitchen originally had wallpaper, so I stripped that and then painted. (Ignore all the clutter in the coming pictures, plllleeease)

So to explain. The counter tops are a lovely royal blue, the cabinets are a rather dark wood and the floor is in bad shape. I kind of dig the pattern, in a "it's vintage" kind of way, but the condition of the floor is just not good. It's one of those floors that never looks clean regardless of when you last cleaned it. One thing that is hard to see from these pictures is the "peninsula" (you know, like an island but against the wall on one side). It is exactly the same in terms of counters and cabinets.

So during that visit many years ago, I took down the wall paper (which you can see I've started in the above pictures) and repainted.

And just for good measure, here is a picture of my adorable brother, his puppy and the ugly floor:

So obviously I have my work cut out for me. I'll explain in detail what I'm planning to do in a future post (perhaps next week...), but first, I want to know--what DIY updates would you suggest I attempt?