how to update a kitchen very cheaply without much time investment?!

3 years ago

This is our kitchen. We moved in three years ago and have been saving to get the wall knocked-thru and make it into a space that functions well. However after a variety of set backs during saving I can’t see us being able to do it for at least another two years. Therefore I was really hoping for some inspiration of what to do to make it look nice?
I’m worried about painting doors myself as I’m not particularly good with a paint brush! But really I don’t want to spend more than £200! If I do paint the doors- how hard is it? And do darker colours hide mistakes? Could maybe do dark blue?
The other question is there a way to make the kick-boards at the bottom stand up straight- currently they don’t and there’s a small gap between the floor and the bottom of the board and so many little bits get in there!

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Comments (4)

Sonia
3 years ago
The cheapest option is to paint the doors, but it’s also the most time consuming. The units look very French country. I wonder if it is worth all that effort if you are going to change everything in a couple of years? To paint them properly they need a through clean, then a light sand, then painted with 2 coats of primer and then 2 top coats of eggshell. Each coat must be allowed to dry between coats otherwise they will feel tacky. You could get a decorator to do it for you but that normally costs at least £150 + a day so will bust your budget.
T Gray
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
Find out if your local car spraying company would do the painting for you. If yes, hopefully it would be for less than your budget. Ask them what prep would need doing that you could do to keep the costs down. Dark blue on the bottom and white on the top would look nice especially if you matched the chairs in dark blue too.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Strong-Kitchen-attaching-Bracket-Basics/dp/B01H2SXCXE

These may be needed to fix the kick boards back on. The originals may be missing or broken.
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Lisa D
3 years ago
That would look much more modern painted - I did my similar style one a couple of years ago - but it cost me £1500 for the decorator. New shiny handles. People don’t realise now it’s quite an old kitchen.
Jonathan
3 years ago
Painting the doors will take a long time and once you start you can’t give up. Given you don’t really want to I wouldn’t paint the doors.
I would get a kitchen fitter to do some remedial work to level up the doors and plinth. They could probably fix the loose tile too. I would then paint the walls (much easier job than paining the cabinets) and I would buy an inexpensive Lino for the floor.

how to update a kitchen very cheaply without much time investment?!

Comments (4)

Sonia

T Gray

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Lisa D

Jonathan

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