How to give a new life to your kitchen

Tired kitchen?

Is your kitchen suffering from fatigue? Are the units sound but the doors are tired and outdated? It might be time to call in an interior designer who can advise you on the best way to update your kitchen with the minimal amount of cost.

Below is a ‘Before’ photo of a kitchen. The unit doors were pine and battered, obviously in need to an update as were the walls. Cost was an issue here and there was no Plan B if anything went wrong. No pressure then!
I decided to keep the white tiles on the walls, the white worktop and clean up the stainless steel cooker hood. As the wall tiles and worktops were white, the customer did not want to give the kitchen a ‘dental surgery’ feel, but did want to introduce subtle colour. The only other replacements were the tired roller blind was replaced by a fresh new one and the cupboard handles. The flooring is in the process of being replaced by easy to clean tiles in black.

Colour of unit doors. This was a south facing kitchen; therefore, cool clean colours could be used without the room feeling cold. In the brief, the client wanted a restful space so the designer chose the sage colour, it immediately made the kitchen feel much larger and cleaner. If you choose to attempt this yourself, do seek advice. Quality of paint is very important as is preparation of the surface. Cutting corners with the preparation, will give a disappointing outcome as will colour of primer and whether a roller or brush is used. When the newly painted doors were fitted it immediately became obvious that new handles would add to the update. Brushed stainless steel handles were chosen which brightened the green colour. If you are planning to go this route, do not skimp on handle quality – this can make or break the scheme.

There was no problem with the lighting, so it was decided to keep it as it is, any change would have incurred additional cost.
The walls originally had wallpaper, which was getting rather shabby and greasy. This was stripped, uncovering a dark orange wall. As the scheme called for light grey walls, this needed three coats of emulsion to cover the awful orange. The outcome has been a fresh feeling kitchen.

As you can see the outcome has been very successful. The scheme did require lots of tester pots and viewing the colours in different lights. Light green can look very grey in certain lights so care had to be taken when choosing the right shade as there was light grey on the walls, it would have looked very ordinary with two shades of grey

As you can see, a dramatic makeover in your kitchen needn't cost the earth. All it needs is just a few inexpensive touches!

Anne Stuart