Give your kitchen a mini makeover

Are you fed up of your kitchen look drab and tired? Fear not, there are ways of injecting some life back into it without breaking the bank.

The first thing to look at is the walls; pick a plain light colour like an off white or very pale yellow and paint the lot of them; you’ll find that this will make the whole room feel more fresh and modern – even if your oven looks like a throwback from the 70s.

Painting is pretty budget-friendly; especially for the standard colours like white, plus having a painted kitchen in an easy colour makes for convenient touch ups when you get a spaghetti sauce splash back after the kids have decided to get creative with their dinner.

The windows in a kitchen can make it or break it; if you’ve got shabby old curtains, whip them out and pop to a material shop for some plain voile or something similar – this is a really cheap fabric and comes in all sorts of colours so you can make simple drapes for less than half the price of ordering new curtains.

If you have space in your kitchen for a table then pick up a table runner and a couple of decorations like flowers or candles that match your chosen colours; this will give it a contemporary look and your table will always be dressed which will brighten up the whole space.

Now for the cupboards and worktops; obviously ordering a whole new fitted kitchen is not budget friendly and doesn’t really fall into the category of a ‘mini makeover’ but you can brighten up your cupboards pretty easily.
If they’re wooden cupboard doors and they’re looking a bit drab give them a sanding down and paint them with a high gloss white paint. This paint will reflect light from the windows and light fixtures to create the feeling of a bigger space.

If your cupboard doors are beyond repair and serve no place in your sparkly new kitchen then bin them. Pop down to your local hardware shop and get some new ones; you can buy standard sized cupboard doors second hand as well and you (or the handy man in your life) can just fit them to the existing cupboard fixtures – same goes for any drawers. This will make your kitchen look brand new without having to tear the whole thing out.