5 thrifty kitchen makeover ideas
Having a new kitchen fitted out costs thousands of pounds, but with a bit of imagination you can refresh what you’ve got for a lot less.
1. Change the doors
Most kitchen units come in standard widths so it’s very easy to simply remove old cupboard doors and drawer fronts and fit new ones. The units themselves are usually the most costly part of a new kitchen, so doors can be bought quite cheaply, and will just need screwing into place.
2. Refresh your worktops
Again, worktops are bought separately to the rest of the units in kitchen shops, and can be cut to order. Even wooden surfaces can be bought fairly cheaply from big DIY outlets if you shop around, or go for a laminated top in a colour you haven’t tried before.
3. Create kitchen ‘art’
Make your kitchen more homely by adding a couple of small shelves that can be adorned with pretty food packets to create the larder look. Or buy a food magazine and cut out beautiful full-page photos of vegetables to display in clip frames.
4. Paint your walls
Many kitchens are a functional and white, but kitchen paints come in all kinds of much warmer colours. Even if you don’t want to clamber behind appliances, add a dramatic new shade on free walls to contrast with what you already have.
5. Hang your pans
Go for the ‘celeb chef’ look by getting a wooden ‘pulley’ laundry rack for the middle of your kitchen and hanging your pans from it. The racks aren’t too expensive online. Arrange pans by size or colour, adding a bunch or two of dried flowers for a real country cottage look.
Savvy tip
Use kitchen paint rather than regular interior house paint – it’s designed to resist moisture and grease more effectively, and can be wiped down without marking.
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