Kitchen renovation - before and after

The kitchen is the one room in your house that must be working at all times. But since it's the heart of the home, a kitchen should also be stylish and presentable. Whether you’re making small upgrades to your home, going for a full renovation project, a kitchen renovation is a great way to start to change the feel of your home. Anything is possible with a few power tools, a lot of inspiration, and a design-savvy eye, no matter how outdated and hopeless a kitchen can seem. Do you want proof? Take a look at these ideas to improve your kitchen and get the best "after" look.

Breakfast bar

A kitchen benchtop is perhaps the most defining characteristic in the space, and it contributes to the "personality" you're trying to create. In addition, the right kitchen benchtop ensures that your kitchen is functional. Practically speaking, the kitchen benchtops are where you prepare meals and keep anything you need close at hand when working in the kitchen. For small kitchens, it's always difficult to fit the dining table somewhere. Why not turn your kitchen benchtop into a breakfast bar. Use the natural light and add some pendant lights over your breakfast bar. If you have too much light, install blinds, curtains, louvres or shutters to address issues of privacy, home security and control the amount of light coming into your kitchen. Replace your old chairs with a good quality set of bar stools.

Declutter

Having an overcrowded kitchen is everyone’s nightmare. If you don’t have enough cabinet space, now is the time to get some. To make sure your kitchen looks functional and minimal, have bare concrete walls, wood floors, wood cabinet doors and shelving. Modern cabinetry keeps the surfaces streamlined and clean. If you don’t like minimal, modern-looking kitchens, take a look at open-shelving options. Open shelving is a perfect tool for personalising your kitchen and bringing in colour and character. Aim for a mixture of decorative and useful items on display. If painting cabinet doors isn't enough to make them look new, there are other ways to redesign your kitchen cabinets. If your cabinet structure is in good shape, you might be able to fully replace your cabinet doors. That way, you can choose a totally different door design than the originals while keeping the layout of your kitchen intact. You could replace the door handles with something new for a fast and easy change if you're satisfied with the doors but want to make a small change. 

Use paint

The use of colour is perhaps the single most important way you can re-designing your space. If your kitchen looks dull, repainting is the way to go to instantly brighten up a dark, tired room. Walls, cabinetry, ceiling and even floors can all be repainted to make your kitchen looks new. Particularly if you're looking for affordable ways to make your small kitchen appear bigger, opt for the lightness and brightness of an all-white palette. Changing the colours in a room can immediately bring life into it, adding vibrancy back into a darkened space or injecting a splash of colour into an otherwise neutral space. If you have a colourful kitchen, we suggest green. The best way to do this is to paint your kitchen with green colour, and while the simplest thing to do is to paint a single accent wall, a much more dramatic option is to extend the accent wall into the surrounding planes. The surrounding planes can be the cabinets or storage that is colour coded to the colour of the wall. If you want to further integrate it, you can match the accessories or create a contrast.

Change your tiles

If you haven’t renovated or changed your kitchen for a while, your kitchen tiles are probably looking old and worn out. That makes the kitchen look dull and tired. By adding a few backsplash tiles is a great way of cooling the space and giving it a little spruce up. The ceramic mini-tiles are used to line complex ceramic surfaces, as well as to edge the backsplash or its accent elements. Ceramic mosaic has all of the characteristics of a tile, but it can be made of multi-coloured glass, pebbles, enamel, and other materials. The high cost, the need for professional installation, and the need for frequent cleaning are just a few of the drawbacks. Neutral-coloured mosaic tiles serve as a simple foundation for the other colours in the room pop.  Mosaic tiles can also be used to create a great coastal kitchen too. Bring the ocean to your kitchen with beautiful blue glass tiles, or insert single ceramic beach tiles into a neutral backsplash.

A little bit of thought and will can bring to life a well-designed and easy to access the kitchen. Need help renovating your kitchen?