Painting is a great way to update your cabinets. New hardware is great,too.

You might be able to contact a cabinet shop and ask them to order you new doors and drawer fronts and then you only need to paint the sides and frames.The new doors and drawer fronts will add a new look and be much easier to paint or stain.Good luck!

I would say with your experience, the cheapest things to do would be to paint them, clean them extra good and put new contact paper on them or spend a bunch of money and replace with new oak cabinets like your 80s style cabinets.

small projects go to home depot and look for already cut plywood
measure your sides and front of cabinets. home depot will cut most of any thing in square pieces. I resurfaced my mothers cabinets, I took a small wood burning torch and darken enough of the grain sanded the surface and put polyurethane on it.
measured the doors of the old and had home depot cut each one
the size I needed bought new hinges and new door knobs.

Painting the cabinsets will be the easiest, most inexpensive solution.
Re the countertops, I had the exact same (wood-look laminate) and I did something really cool with it. You can paint it!
First, you sand it all down, and clean it with mineral spirits to remove all the dust. Then you paint on some primer, like Binz. Then you paint as you like! I created a marble effect with a couple of coats of gloss black with some terra cotta and green sponge paint technique. Once your painting is finished, you follow up with polyurethane, several coats for durability. Works great as long as you’re not using the countertop for a cutting surface, and remember to NOT put a pan right off the stove onto the countertop. Good luck! (This project cost me less than $40)

Are you willing to strip and paint them? are they real wood or not? If I were you, I would do a nice paint finish on them if you’re willing to do the work. It’s the least expensive way to go, and there are lots of different options. There are also companies that will replace just the doors and that’s much less $ than a new kitchen. I could give you some paint advice if you add some details.

Paint them. “lol”

call a friend to help and home dept