Ideas for quick + easy kitchen updates that can completely transform a dated kitchen.
This post has been a long time coming my friends. With green walls, a ceiling fan over the dining table and the original ovens from 1988, this kitchen was nothing short of a hot mess when we moved into this new/old house of ours.
As you can see, we definitely made some very necessary changes in here through our first year here, but there’s still SO much we could do to make this space feel more us. This is where things get a bit tricky for us though – we have every intention of fully gutting and renovating this space sometime in the near-ish future, so we definitely don’t want to invest a ton of time and money into a space that we ultimately have other plans for. At the same time, we’ve got a lot on the go with all of the renovations upstairs that we’d like to finish up before we start any major renovations on the main floor, which means it’ll likely be another couple of years before we actually get around to renovating this space. Do I really want to live with this kitchen the way it is for the next couple of years? Not even a little bit. And so we find ourselves stuck in this weird limbo of not ready to renovate, but hate things so much the way they are that we have to do something. Luckily there is a middle ground here.
My head has been spinning the last few months with ideas for smaller scale changes that we could make in here. Simple ideas that are relatively inexpensive and would be easy to execute. Things that wouldn’t be a big investment on our end, but would have a huge impact on the look and feel of our kitchen. Small changes that wouldn’t take too much time and money from our big picture plans, but that would really help us to enjoy our home more in the mean time. A “phase one” renovation that could tide us over until we’re ready for the real deal.
I’ve got so many ideas for all sorts of spaces around my head for several spaces around our main floor – our laundry/ mudroom, our powder room (which I talked a bit about here), Brady’s office, even our living room (I touched on some of those here), but today, I want to dive into the heart of our home – our kitchen. There are some big ticket items that we’re just not willing to invest in at this moment, knowing that they’ll be ripped out with a phase two kitchen reno down the road – mainly the cabinet layout and countertops, but I’ve got some big ideas for the rest of this space and I can’t wait to share them with you!
Simple + Inexpensive Kitchen Renovation Ideas
I think the place to start in here would be to update the existing cabinets. The obvious answer here is to paint all of the cabinets and bulkheads so that everything is one uniform colour (rather than a weird mix of white and oak) and of course, painting our cabinets is at the top of my list for this space. But, on top of than that, I’ve got so many more ideas that we could make use of to update these old cabinets. I’d love to swap out the glass doors for wood so that the drawers behind them aren’t visible (I think swapping out the glass for a thin piece of mdf, should be fairly quick and easy). Swapping out the hardware from the boring builder grade handles to something with more style, would be another easy update. Finally, I’d like to explore the idea of building out a cover for the existing range hood to match the cabinets and maybe add some DIY toe kicks under the cabinets while we’re at it – wrapping the flooring up the base of the cabinets really dates this space even more.
In addition to updating the cabinetry, I’d definitely want to replace that dated backsplash as well. There’s SO much going on in this space – swapping out the tile backsplash (along with the rock on our island!) for beadboard panelling painted out in the same colour as our cabinets would be an easy and inexpensive way to streamline things.
There’s no denying that the bulky built-in light over our island needs to go. I’m worried about what lies under it, but honestly, at this point, I think we just need to get thing down and figure it out from there. I’d love to replace it with a couple of simple pendant lights – something we can bring with us into our final kitchen space so that the expense of new lighting isn’t wasted.
Speaking of things we can bring with us through to our final kitchen, I’d really love to replace out faucets (the existing ones are cheap and never seem to work properly). If we splurge for some better faucets in here, I’d definitely want to choose something that can make the transition into our phase two kitchen renovation down the road.
Another potential upgrade for our kitchen that could transition through all versions would be investing in some panel ready appliances. I’m not entirely sure about this one just yet as we’d need to do some research into options that could work in the space now, but that we would be happy using long term – I’m a bit worried about fridge sizing limitations here, much less concerned about a dishwasher.
Another expense I think we could make use of in our final kitchen space would be some roman shade valances for our windows. While I love how well our Lutron shades function for our family, I can’t say I love the look of them. I think adding some faux roman shade valances over top of them would go such a long way to warming up that big wall of windows.
As much as I wish we cold take that built-in desk area out, I’m not sure I want to mess with the cabinets and counters around it and I’m not entirely sure what I could replace it with. At this point, I think I’d be happy to just add a little cafe style curtain underneath it and maybe see if Brady can add a plug in our pantry so that we can relocate that microwave off of our counter.
I’m not sure I could go through all that hard work and not do something about our ugly grey floors in here. Whether we find an inexpensive replacement for them or maybe just cover them with some paint, I’ve got to find some way to update those ugly floors!
Phase One Kitchen Renovation Ideas:
- replace glass cabinet doors with wood
- paint cabinets and bulk heads
- change cabinet hardware
- replace the backsplash with beadboard
- build a hood fan cover
- replace faucets
- add toe kicks under the cabinets
- add cafe curtain under the bult-in desk
- relocate microwave to the pantry
- remove the built-in light over the island and replace with pendants
- replace the rocks on the island with beadboard
- add faux roman shades to the windows
- change/replace flooring
Whew! I know that sounds like a pretty long list, and I guess it is when you really break it down into projects, but I really think all of these ideas would go such a long way to updating this space. I love that they’re all relatively simple and inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and so much of it could easily transition into our finished kitchen space down the road when we finally do get around to a phase two renovation. I think we could realistically do this phase one for $2500 or less (not counting things like lighting, faucets and appliances that could transition to our final kitchen space). Considering it’ll be at least a couple of years before we will be able to tackle a proper renovation of this space, I think that $2500 for a kitchen that feels more like us in the mean time would be money well spent.
What do you think? Is a phase one kitchen renovation something that you’d like to follow along with?
Wishing you SUCH a lovely day!
I can't wait to hear your thoughts!