Kitchen Facelift Tips

Quick Kitchen Facelift: How to Restore the Heart of Your Home All On Your Own

Want to redo your dark and dreary kitchen without spending a bundle on new cabinets and appliances? Consider giving it a DIY facelift next weekend.

Changing the ambience from outdated to trendy in the heart of your home, the kitchen, doesn’t have to be any more extensive than thoroughly cleaning the cabinet fronts and applying a coat of fresh white paint. White is the most popular color for kitchens today, with good reason. People are tired of dark wood kitchens that look somber and serious! White makes a wonderful backdrop for bowls of fresh fruit, stainless steel appliances and shiny kitchen utensils, too.

If you want to go a little farther, remove a door or two from the upper cabinets and use the shelves therein to display your prettiest china and crystal. Installing some shiny new brass hinges on your “new” white cabinets provides an additional lift.

If your kitchen doesn’t have a preparation island but you would love to have one, spend some time at local flea markets or antique shops hunting down a vintage butcher block table. You might also want to consider adding some colorful tiles to your kitchen backsplash to infuse life and personality into your kitchen space.

Scour local flea markets for vintage kitchen utensils you can display and use. Think up new uses for old things: a basket that’s held a plant for years could just as well store potatoes and a colorful mixing bowl is a great place to display fresh fruit.

If you have small children, consider covering a wall with chalkboard paint to allow them room to express their creativity. If you don’t have the wall space to spare, use the chalkboard paint on the end of your linear cabinets.

Once you’ve created a new “stage set” by redoing the walls and cupboards with paint, you’ve opened a new world of design possibilities. Take a look around to see what other easy changes you can make. For example, if upper top cabinets stop short of the ceiling, how about topping them with colorful pots filled with fresh green plants or fabric lined wicker baskets.

One of the most essential elements of freshening up your kitchen décor is the hardware. Nothing says old and outdated more than dated brass cabinet knobs and drawer pulls. Invest some money in some sleek polished nickel hardware to adorn your freshly painted cabinets.

Other small and relatively inexpensive changes can work wonders. Replace your tired, old kitchen curtains with plantation shutters or roman blinds to add a decorator flair to your room. Lighting can also make a big impact in a kitchen, so think about pot lights and track lighting that will be functional as well as beautiful.

The amount of lift you give your kitchen is limited only by your imagination and it can definitely be accomplished in a single weekend. Imagine having a brand new kitchen by Monday morning – what a fabulous way to start a new week!

©2007, Kathy Burns-Millyard.