Home renovations have been on a rise and they are set to continue in 2021. One of the most popular spaces that homeowners are choosing to remodel is their kitchens. Kitchens are where we spent a lot of time as a family and an important part of a home. Now we have all seen beautiful kitchens in our favorite movies, Hello, anything from Nancy Meyers and renovation/flip shows, but with them comes a very hefty budget and not everyone has the funds to make that happen. My parents moved into their house over 25 years ago and the kitchen has pretty much remained the same. Yes, appliances have come and gone, but the layout and cabinets have remained the same. This summer my mom decided she needed a project to distract herself and her focus immediately went to the kitchen. I was happy to get on board with a design plan! So, today I’m sharing some kitchen remodel ideas on a budget! Do them all or do just one! I’m certain they are going to give your kitchen a fresh look and a bit of life without breaking the bank!

5 WAYS TO TRANSFORM YOUR KITCHEN WITHOUT UNDERTAKING A BIG RENOVATION

BEFORE:

Here is what the kitchen looked like before: Just imagine the doors back on them! I went a little delete happy and lost the photos before this. The uppers were a creamy color and the bottoms were a dark green with oil rubbed brass knobs and the original countertops and backsplash.

AFTER: Isn’t it a breath of fresh air! It’s such a happy space that totally feels brand new!

Want to get a fresh new look in your kitchen?

HERE ARE MY IDEAS FOR HOW TO TACKLE A KITCHEN REMODEL ON A BUDGET

KITCHEN REMODEL IDEA 1: PAINT IT ALL!

Paint your cabinets, your walls, and your ceiling. A new coat of paint is going to make a huge impact. I know people can get scared about the process and it is a doozy with many steps, but it’s not hard. Just time-consuming. If you can get it outsourced then I say go forward! Price-wise here in NY the quote we got for my parents’ kitchen was $4,000. Doing it yourself would be much more affordable, but a lot of hours.

Steps for painting cabinets:

• • • • Make a map and number your cabinet doors so that you know where everything goes when it’s time to re-install them.
      • Remove all of your doors. Make sure to save and number your hardware as well if you are not changing it.
      • Degrease your cabinets. We used Krud Kutter and it worked really well for us.
      • If you have painted your cabinets in the past then you can strip the old paint away. We did this and used CitriStrip.  It is a long process. Again not difficult, but it takes time and there is a lot of scrapping, and then re-applying the CitriStrip and doing it again. Honestly, if we were doing it again I would have just sanded the cabinets and then applied the new paint over the old paint.
      • If you are going to be changing up cabinet pull/knob placement then now is the time to spackle your holes.
      • Now you can sand your cabinets. We used 150 grit sandpaper.
      • Wipe your cabinets again with a damp cloth and let them dry.
      • It’s time to prime! We used Kilz oil-based primer.
      • Apply your cabinet paint. We used a roller and paintbrush, but I think it would be a great project for a paint sprayer!
      • When it came to the actual paint I partnered with CLARE. Clare is a black-owned small business started by a former blogger and friend of mine called, Nicole Gibbons! The paint colors are stunning and so is the quality of the paint. I was so impressed with their customer service, packaging, quality, and color. For the kitchen cabinets, we got a bunch of samples that come as stickers that we stuck on the cabinets and moved around to see what we liked best. The winning color was Dirty Martini in the trim paint line that has a semi-gloss finish!
      • In between coats make sure to do a little sanding if you see any bumps or imperfections.

*** For the most part our cabinet bases and doors were in good shape, but the sink base was in rough shape and needed to be replaced. We needed to get a new cabinet base which is an easy purchase from our home improvement store, but the doors were a different store. We couldn’t find the exact style in ready-made cabinets. Luckily I found Best Cabinet Doors and they were awesome to work with. I gave them my custom size and they made them for me and it did not break the bank! So happy I found a solution.***

STRIPPING THE CABINETS:

After the stripping and sanding they will look like this:

SPRAYED WITH PRIMER AND READY FOR PAINT:

I also updated the cabinet hardware and it made a huge difference! My go-to source for hardware is D LAWLESS HARDWARE. I have been ordering from them for the past 10 years and they are awesome! I email Derrick all of the time with different requests! For this project, I used champagne bronze pulls and knobs.

Along with painting the cabinets we also gave everything a fresh coat of paint with new ceiling paint and wall paint. For the wall paint, we went with Whipped, which is a beautiful warm white! We have had the new paint job for a couple of months now and we still love it. No regrets!

KITCHEN REMODEL IDEA 2: BACKSPLASH UPDATE

A classic white subway tile is only 15 cents! There is no excuse not to swap it out. It’s a pretty easy project to tackle on the DIY spectrum. Something a beginning could totally tackle. We didn’t have time to do it ourselves so I hired my handyman to do it and the demo of the old tile and new tile install and grouting was only $300. Totally worth it for us! Since we didn’t need a ton of backsplash tile so, I wanted something a bit special to give me a little va va voom! I ended up with Portmore glazed ceramic tile by Tilebar and it is so pretty! It reminds has this texture to it which gives it a handmade vibe and has this awesome sheen to it.

If tile isn’t your thing then you could try swapping it out for a beadboard panel instead. I think this looks super pretty, but you need to be careful with the area behind the sink and stove.

If you are in a rental then peel and stick backsplash is something you can try out!

If you don’t want to remove the tile at all then a nice update is to repaint your grout.

KITCHEN REMODEL IDEA 3: COUNTERTOPS

Countertops are not super budget-friendly, but they are much cheaper than a full kitchen renovation and they make a huge difference!  I picked out a beautiful Calcutta gold quartz that has beautiful veining, little gold/brown accents that work really nicely with the floors and are more durable than marble. Now you can price them out at home improvement stores and even Ikea, but my tip is to go directly to the stone yard. Many of them only work with contractors or designers, but I find that once you go in and look around they are willing to work with you. They also typically carry their own brand of stone and if you don’t care about a name brand it’s more affordable. The countertop we ended up with was around $56 a sq ft and that included them coming in and measuring, making the template, doing the sink cut out, and installing the new countertop.

When we bought our first house we didn’t have a big budget for countertops so we decided to use Formica and I wasn’t super into the idea, but I had to think about the budget and we went with this black one that gave off a Silestone vibe and worked perfectly. So. don’t be afraid to look at them. Especially when it comes to picking up the ready cut sections at Lowes or Home Depot. It is so affordable! I used this faux marble finish countertop in my studio space and it looked super pretty!

Along with the countertops we swapped out the old yellow sink my parents had to this undermount sink beauty!!!!! A new faucet was then in the cards as well and I got this pretty brass kitchen faucet with touch technology so, you can turn it on and off with a light touch. It takes a little getting used to, but now everyone knows how to use it and not get splashed in the arm by accident.

KITCHEN REMODEL IDEA 4:  LIGHTING

Light, light, and more light. A kitchen can always use more light! With the placement of my parents’ house, we don’t get a ton of direct sunlight. I’m constantly opening their front door to let more light in! The kitchen already had recessed lighting which gave us a good amount of light. We did swap out the cans so that all of them had the same finish and cap on them. We also swapped out the old fashioned looking ceiling fan and went with the Hepburn ceiling fan from Hunter. It has a nice warm brass finish with white fan blades. It is so pretty!!!!! Everyone talks about it when they see it! It also comes with a cool remote switch for the wall and it controls the light/dimmer and fan speed.

KITCHEN REMODEL IDEA 5: FURNITURE UPDATES

My parents don’t have a kitchen island in their kitchen. In that space, they have a dining table and chairs. It where most of their meals are eaten. The set that they had was something that had been there for ages and really needed to be swapped out. After the countertops, it was the second priciest part of the remodel, but again it’s much less than a major remodel.

I did my usual searching in thrift stores and facebook marketplace but all of those items would need love. I would need to refinish them and re-upholster dining chairs, etc. I decided that it was better to just buy something brand new. I ended up with this dining table in the driftwood finish and then paired with these white and rattan base x back chairs. It’s the best coordinating chair for the table. Remember things should go together and speak to each other, but they don’t need to match.

I also added some additional furniture elements like this accent chest, which houses all of the boys’ school items. One side has Asher’s finished homework assignments and art projects and the other side has Hudson’s. The top drawers have pencils, chargers for their school electronics, stapler, etc. Above I placed a pair of floating shelves to display some accessories!

It was a project that took all summer to complete and I’m going to be honest towards the end of the summer my mom wanted to give up. She was tired of painting the cabinets and wanting to give up, but she charged on and I stepped in to help with labor. Outsourcing the tile install and painting of the walls was a big help in getting over the hump and getting excited again about the project. We all love the finished result. The tile floors were in the house when we moved in and while my mom doesn’t hate them she doesn’t love them either. Now all of a sudden they make total sense in the kitchen and look like they were picked on purpose!

Make sure you pin this post for future projects! Lots of great sources for getting the job tackled when the time comes!