My DIY kitchen makeover
When we moved into our new flat it needed work; a new roof, floors sanding, electrics upgrades, and complete redecoration throughout. We also decided we wanted a brand new bathroom, so to save money decided to live with the kitchen we have, but to "spruce it up".
"Sprucing up" the kitchen was one of my lockdown projects, and I managed to do the whole thing for under £150.
Change of colour
The cupboards were originally a very grubby and boring white.
I wanted to introduce a dark colour without making the already small space seem even smaller. I went for two tone cabinets; Jewel Beetle green by Little Greene on the bottom, and just a fresh lick of white paint on the top to freshen them up. By keeping the top half white, the space still feels light.
One of the reasons the space felt so dark and groggy was because of the dark grey backsplash that wrapped around the whole kitchen, so I decided to paint this white to blend in with the wall and upper cabinets.
With a mouse sander I sanded back the surface of everything I was going to paint - not enough to strip the colour off but enough to create a rough surface, and then I painted using a mini roller to get a smooth finish. I used a clear varnish on top behind the hobs so that cooking stains could easily be wiped off.
The biggest faff was scraping out the old sealant, but it was disgusting so a worthwhile job. I used Unibond Anti-Mould Sealant which is great because you don't need any tools and can just squeeze it out of the tube. The trick is to wet your finger and smooth the sealant down in one motion to get the smoothest finish.
Hardware update
New shelf, and new handles.
I bought replacement handles from Ebay for the cabinet doors. This is a great way of rejuvenating your kitchen without spending too much money, and there's loads of choice online. Most kitchen cabinets have standard sizes for handles but just make sure you measure first. I went for gold because it looks great against the green.
Installing shelves and adding accessories
Left to right: Bread bin from Argos, Olive wood chopping board from Amazon, Ribbed glass jar from Argos.
I wanted to add shelves to the kitchen, not just for storage but to add a bit of interest. I bought 2 floating shelves from eBay and attached them to the wall to display recipe books, plants and vases.
Faux tile backsplash
Finally, to spice up the backsplash, I bought some peel and stick subway tiles from Amazon. These are wipeable, and it took a couple of hours to stick these onto the plain backsplash to add a bit of interest.
So that's it for my mini kitchen update, hopefully it's shown that you can make some great changes to a kitchen without investing a lot of money!
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