If you had to choose one room to revamp in your house, the kitchen would be near the top of your list. It’s the room you spend a lot of active time in. What this means is that you’re in there for hours a day actually doing stuff – rather than lying down sleeping. So, it makes sense to create a sanctuary that looks nice and makes you enjoy being there.
The obvious step after this is to look into kitchen renovations. A quick Google will tell you the average kitchen remodel costs a staggering $26,790 and can range from $14,000 to $42,000! I’ll give you a moment to steady yourself as those are some pretty huge figures. Most of us can’t afford to splash that amount of cash in one go. Are we doomed to have a below-average kitchen forever?
No! Budget-friendly solutions exist that will revamp your kitchen and transform the way it looks and functions. You’ll see some of my favorite ideas below, all of which are relatively cheap and don’t require extensive remodeling work!
Update your cabinets, drawers, and handles
A big chunk of your kitchen is dominated by fixtures such as cabinets and drawers. Usually, upgrading these items is a lengthy task that costs a lot of money. Again, if we look at some of the reports online, the average cost of new kitchen cabinets is between $5,500 and $13,000!
That’s ridiculously expensive, but you’re about to see how to have similar improvements at a fraction of the cost. The trick is to switch out the handles on these fixtures for something else. It could be a different style, color, material, or whatever suits your tastes. Immediately, this will change the way your kitchen looks – but it doesn’t end there.
You can repaint your cabinets or cover them with contact paper. This is a special type of design paper that sticks to surfaces and changes the way they look. It’s a semi-permanent idea in that the paper won’t come off by itself yet you can peel it away if you want. Now, you have kitchen cabinets and drawers that look brand new and can appear completely different, but the whole process will cost barely anything!
Use more contact paper on your countertops
We’re calling upon our friend contact paper again here because it is the most amazing way to make budget-friendly renovations. It lets you remodel your home with minimal costs and almost zero stress.
This time, you’re looking at your countertops. Have you ever looked at them and wished you could have gorgeous marble ones? With contact paper, you can gain the appearance of marble without any extensive installations or high expenses. To the untrained eye, your kitchen will look more high-end and luxurious.
The best thing is, it’s easy to install and you can remove it whenever you want. In theory, you could switch between new styles every season to keep updating your kitchen counters. Make sure you choose contact paper that’s suitable for kitchens and is waterproof. Some can be heatproof, but it isn’t essential – just place heat protective mats over the counters whenever you’re dealing with hot food.
Swap out your kitchen sink
There’s a tiny bit of work involved in repainting cabinets, switching handles, and applying contact paper. This next idea requires a tad more physical work, but it has a huge impact and can’t be ignored.
The kitchen sink is often the focal point of many kitchens and it’s where you will spend a lot of time cleaning up. So, it makes sense to upgrade your sink to something even better. You will find new kitchen sinks at decent prices, so it’s highly affordable. I do recommend getting a plumbing company to remove your old one and install the new one, just to be sure all the plumbing fittings are correctly in place.
Just like that, you’ve given a new edge to your kitchen space. Imagine going from a boring metal sink to one that’s matt black. Even some faucet upgrades make a huge difference – you could install one of those faucets that bend and have a shower head like in commercial kitchens!
It’s easy to look at this guide and see three ideas that might not make a huge difference. In reality, these three changes completely alter the way your kitchen looks. You’ll come in way under the average kitchen renovation price, and you’ll barely do any work to your kitchen too. It’s a no-brainer – if you want a new kitchen without splashing the cash, try these ideas.
