A new kitchen

So we recently bought a new rental, well, not new, it was built in 1980, but new to us.  If you've been thinking "Gee, I wonder where they've been?"  Now you know.  We remodeled the kitchen, on a pretty tight budget because I wanted to get new appliances.  Here's what we did and how it turned out.

Before:

As you can see the cabinets needed help, the lighting was awful, the appliances had to go and the counter top was not good.  Here's what we did.
First we stained the cabinets with a all on one, stain and polyurethane.  I got a reddish stain, and I spent about $13.  This is after we finished the cabinets.

Then, we painted the counters with a special paint.  I'm not impressed with it.  I looks great, but I don't think it will be very durable, so I will likely have to come up with a new solution in a couple years, but for $20 for the whole kitchen it's hard to beat.  Here's the counters after.

Then we replaced the lights.  The one over the sink made the biggest difference, the one in the middle of the kitchen matches it.

We got new appliances, I like white and we got the dishwasher for $399 because it had been returned to Lowe's because the lady didn't like how her dishes fit in it!  It's a $600 Bosch dishwasher and it's nice a quiet with low water usage.  Here's the finished kitchen.