Ways to Refresh Your Kitchen on a Budget

Painted Cabinets, A Cheap Way to Refresh Your KitchenWondering how to renew kitchen furniture at a low cost? Thanks to our ideas for kitchen renovation, you will cleverly renovate old kitchen furniture and even change their equipment.

How to renew kitchen furniture – painting cabinets
If the cabinets are in good technical condition and we accept their appearance, it is worth considering only tuning them. In many cases, a small lifting and retrofitting of cabinets will satisfy our needs for change. This may be a better solution than buying the cheapest pledge, which will certainly not be of the highest quality.

1. Before we decide to renovate kitchen cabinets, let’s do a general review of the walls of the corps, shelves, drawers, fronts and plinths. All elements should be cleaned, checked for damage, look at the hinges in the door and the drawer slides.

2. We repair minor defects and replace damaged elements, such as shelves or hinges, with new ones. New shelves can be bought at the DIY store and ordered to cut the element from the board to size.

3. If the kitchen cabinets are based on screwed legs, which are covered with a masking strip from the front, the disassembly works refreshingly. The furniture on the feet look lighter and more modern, and the floor under the cabinets is easier to keep clean. If the legs visible after removing the pedestal are not aesthetic, replace them with new ones. This solution can bring us additional benefits if we buy legs with adjustable height, which will allow to adjust the height of the kitchen table exactly to our needs.

4. Another idea for a simple version of cabinets is to replace old handles with new ones. If steel handles with modern design appear in place of old knobs, the kitchen will take on a new expression.

Kitchen cabinets

5. We renew the fronts. Wooden can be painted with water-based acrylic enamel for wood or – if we want a more resistant coating – with alkyd solvent enamel. Before painting, they should be degreased and cleaned, removing the old paint with, for example, abrasive paper (granulation 120), and the remains of it should be washed with solvent. The advantage of this solution is that you can easily change the color of cabinets. If we want to achieve the effect of aging, we can use chalk paint for painting furniture. Depending on the number of layers, wood grains will shine through or not. Kitchen cabinets will be finished with a mate effect, after additional use of protective wax the fronts will be semi-gloss.

6. All defects in wood are filled with a wood putty. If the old fronts were covered with veneer, we can remove it and put a new one. PRE painted wooden cabinets will be refreshed, varnishing them again or covering them with wax. Regardless of the new finishing method, the old varnish must be removed first. Damaged MDF fronts can be painted with water-borne acrylic paint, preferably semi mate. Older laminate cabinets are more difficult to renew. However, if the veneer becomes detached or has cavities, it is worth removing. The easiest way to do this is by pressing the foil with a hot iron and then rubbing the surface with fine-grained sandpaper (granulation 180-220). You can also paint such a disc with water-based acrylic paint and then varnish it. Depending on the chosen painting technique, we can obtain a smooth surface or a wiping effect.

7. Cabinets can also be covered, but only if their fronts have a smooth surface without cutters or frames. Old corps – new fronts.

8. If the bodies are in good condition or have small, easy to repair defects, only the fronts can be replaced. It is also worth considering the investment in a more modern system of opening cabinets. Instead of a traditional door with handles, you can mount such open able by a light press (tip-on system), louvre or sliding.

9. New interiors of old cabinets. Old cabinets generally do not have too functional interiors. Standard is standing and hanging cabinets with shelves, lockable doors and one or two with drawers. Today, the equipment is much richer, it is the result of applying the principles of ergonomics and new technological possibilities. If we have a high and deep cupboard type cabinet, we can install a cargo system in it, i.e. baskets or shelves on a rack, which protrudes when the cabinet is opened. Sorted things are clearly visible – you do not have to reach for them. A merry-go-round, rotating shelves fixed to the axis, can be mounted to the corner cabinet. It is also worth fitting the drawers, placing trusses in them, wooden, metal or plastic partitions, allowing to organize the items stored in them. A locker under the sink is usually a critical place, where a trash can is usually placed. The easiest way to manage it is to buy a basket-binder. Its equipment is selected for the size of the cabinet and … ecological ambitions. We have a choice: from the simplest with two containers to the expanded with six and additional shelves and storage, for example, used batteries and fluorescent lamps. The ring binder makes it easier to maintain cleanliness and order in the kitchen, and thanks to new habits we can reduce the amount of rubbish even by half.

Picture Credit: Skitterphoto, ErikaWittlieb