Kitchen Makeovers Before and After – Restore the life back into your kitchen

If there is one single thing that brings the homeliness (and indeed the value) of your property down, it’s a dowdy, tired kitchen that’s seen better days. Kitchen styles date quickly, and what seemed like a good idea at the time is now the stuff of nightmares for interior designers and estate agents.

Austere times

However, money is still a little on the tight side for the average householder, and as much as we’d love to have that brand new kitchen with everything replaced from the ground up, it’s a prohibitively expensive business. If you really do have the money and want to push the proverbial boat out, then a complete new kitchen could cost you tens of thousands of pounds. That’s not the kind of spare cash most of us have casually lying around, and it’s certainly not the sort of debt you want to add to your credit card bill. So in these austere times, more cost effective alternatives are needed – and that’s where restoration rather than replacement comes into its own.

Replacing the little things

Let’s start really small with fixtures and fittings. If the budget is pra
ctically non-existent but you still want to give your tired old kitchen a bit of a lift, head for the nearest DIY centre and pick out some new drawer handles, cupboard handles, trim and fixtures. Something as simple as a new set of handles and a good clean can breathe new life into a drab exterior, and it will literally only costyou a few pounds and a bit of time on a Sunday afternoon with a screwdriver!


A lick of pain


Freshen up the walls, ceiling and surrounds with a lick of paint. Choose clean, bright colours that work with what you have – so don’t go for bold, primary colours like bright red or vivid blue if you have a traditional style cottage kitchen.

 

New flooring

The kitchen floor can put up with a lot of wear and tear, but eventually you’ll start to struggle to get the grime out from between the tiles, or notice little bits of damage on laminated or lino flooring.

We’re moving into mid-budget range here, and it may take a little longer than those drawer handles to do, but a new kitchen floor is a DIY job you can do that will add real sparkle to your kitchen.

 



Revive workaday worktops

All that chopping, bashing and spilling takes its toll on your worktops. There are now some seriously stylish options that can turn that around in an instant. Not only can you choose to simply replace the worktops with new ones, but you can now get solid granite covers that slot straight over the top of your old worktop for an instant transformation.

Replace cupboards and drawer fronts

The units themselves may be perfectly serviceable, but those cupboard doors are looking a bit past their best. Call in a kitchen restoration expert to measure up and fit new, bespoke cupboard doors and drawer fronts to completely transform the look of your kitchen in days, rather than weeks – and for at a much more affordable price.

Combine all these little changes and you can create a bright, fresh and new-looking kitchen without the expense, inconvenience and time of a ‘total demolition and start again’ project!