“This post has been sponsored by Beautifully Responsible® Resilient Flooring but all opinions are entirely my own.”
Shane and I loved working on this DIY small kitchen remodel on a budget. When we first walked through this home thinking about if we wanted to buy it or not I could see the potential this kitchen held. When we first saw it though it was rough, like majorly rough! Two different cabinet types. Way too many cabinets for the space. Dark and heavy cabinets. It had a dark window. It had outdated everything. The chandelier was a fan. Umm, that one had me itching my head. Like why would you need a fan in a kitchen? I get a fan above your oven, but nobody wants things flying around in a kitchen from a fan. At-least I do not. Plus, the fan stuck way down into the room. Super old carpet, yeah, another head spinner. Why carpet in the kitchen?? Just don’t! It was old and it was gross. Anyways, I think you get the idea. I had to look far and wide and past everything in the space to see what it could be! So Shane and I decided to buy the house which we call, The Yellow Magnolia. The time had come for us to get to work! Whenever Shane and I are flipping a house, we invest the most of our money in the kitchen and the bathroom. These are the two spaces that really sell a home. Everyone appreciates a nice kitchen and bathroom. So, we did four upgrades that really improved this space that I want to share with you in case you are about to be remodeling a kitchen or are already!
Paint Anything You Can
Well, let me start by saying how amazing paint is. Paint will literally be your best friend through your whole remodel, but especially in the kitchen. Paint has an amazing way of making everything feel clean and new. I usually recommend a nice bright white for the walls, ceilings, and the cabinets if you are painting those. White makes the room feel bigger and gives the kitchen a freshness. I highly recommend painting the ceiling even if it looks like someone painted it recently, if you give it a fresh coat it will help make the room pop. We almost always paint the kitchen cabinets white, especially for a flip house. The cabinets in here were two different styles. On the right the cabinets were a really dark stain and an old style. The cabinets on the left were newly built by the previous owner and they were really beautiful, but they were a light brown color and a newer style. So, Shane and I needed to come up with a way to really combine the two styles and help the kitchen make sense. We decided that painting them both the same white color would make them match and look great! I brush painted these with the color, Chantilly Lace. It is a really bright white and one of my favorite colors for cabinets. We decided to also paint the existing hardware with a gloss black spray paint. This not only saved us money, but it also gave the kitchen more character with these older pulls. We also painted the window here in the kitchen on the trim. Paint is seriously amazing and use it to the best of your ability, it can really help you transform a space without having to spend a lot!
Backsplash and Vent hood
The second upgrade I recommend doing that can instantly transform your kitchen is to install new tile. Tiling is really not the hard, the most important thing is to make sure every single piece is level. We started by demoing the old and outdated tiles by hitting them with a hammer until they shattered and came loose. Thankfully, the previous owner had already done a backerboard, so I was able to reuse that to install the new tiles. I usually choose a vary neutral tile like subway tile, or a marble tile because people like those. This kitchen really needed a nice pop or design I felt like to really bring some interest to the space. I fell in love with this hexagon tile because every piece looked so unique and individual like someone had handmade them all. I really like the pattern and the contrast it brings to the kitchen. Upgrading the tile made this kitchen feel special again! Tile is always a nice upgrade for any kitchen and I feel it is a fairly easy DIY that a lot of people could do themselves. It is also a pretty inexpensive project that adds a lot to the value of the kitchen and to the whole home, it is definitely worth doing! This kitchen did not have a ventilation about the oven when we bought it, it had a microwave about it. Shane and I personally love not only the functionality of a vent hood, but we also love how they look. We think they really jazz up the kitchen and make it look fancy. We actually found this vent hood through facebook marketplace and we fell in love with the stainless-steel look, it was just what this kitchen needed!
Upgrade The Flooring
I could not believe how old and dirty the carpet was in this kitchen when I first saw it. I am not sure why anyone would choose to have carpet in a kitchen, but it does not seem like it is very family friendly at all! We love upgrading flooring in homes. Changing the flooring always makes the space feel so sturdy! Whenever we clean our home, I feel like it never really feels clean until my floors are clean and shiny! I know a lot of people feel that way, too! We recommend upgrading your floors to a Beautifully Responsible® Resilient Flooring for many reasons. One of our main reasons for recommending a Beautifully Responsible® Resilient Flooring is because they are incredibly resilient! I don’t have to worry about my dog coming in and tracking mud or having sharp nails. I don’t have to worry about that spaghetti boiling over and popping on the floors. I don’t need to have rugs to protect my flooring because they are truly resilient and made to be lived on by the whole family including our fur babies! Beautifully Responsible® Resilient Flooring have been purposefully constructed for long-term durability! So, once you install your Resilient Flooring which you can get at your local flooring store, you won’t have to worry about being one step ahead of your family because you don’t need to worry about your floors! They actually have a “no compromises” approach that combines the value propositions of beauty and responsibility together! They are concerned with your family’s well-being of your family and also the overall performance of their floors. We can’t recommend them enough. Please visit BeautifullyResponsible.com to learn more. You can also shop resilient flooring made by Beautifully Responsible® manufacturers at your local flooring store. You can also follow @ResponsibleFloors on YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest to get some inspiration and to learn more!
We installed a beautiful, weathered oak design and we love it so much, it was the perfect addition to this kitchen. We are so happy with it and love that it will serve whoever buys this home so well! We hope they have kiddos and dogs that can just roam freely, and their mom and dad won’t have to worry about the floors! I can see them loving this floor for many years to come!!
Lighting is so important so update your light fixtures
Lighting can make a space feel so much bigger, it is amazing. However, if you don’t have good lighting then it can also make your space look smaller and actually dirtier. Like I mentioned before this kitchen had a really old fan as its main light source. The fan did not fit the space at all. The kitchen has lower ceilings and the fan stuck was too far down. We decided we wanted something that would still bring some nice interest to the space, but wouldn’t be too big for the space. We found this beautiful wood beaded chandelier with simple black details to match the tile and the hardware. I love how the beads bring a warmth to the space. We put in some new light bulbs and this chandelier now adds a lot of nice light to the space. Putting this chandelier up felt like a really big step in this kitchen remodel because it started to make this space make sense again, and it really added a lot to the aesthetic look and feel in here!
Completed Updates To The Kitchen
If you do these four updates to your diy kitchen remodel it will greatly upgrade your kitchen and make it feel fresh and new again. These can all be done on a budget, but any money you spend upgrading these four areas of your kitchen you will get a major return for your money once the space is beautiful and functional again whether you are flipping the home or living in it yourself!
Great article. Thank you, thank you, Adele!