How to Instantly Upgrade your Kitchen without Spending a Small Fortune. It might be said that the kitchen is the most important room in the house.

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1. A friend recently asked me if she should paint her kitchen walls green to compliment her red cherry wood kitchen cabinets. I asked her if she liked the color of.
2. This homeowner customized her cabinets by using corrugated metal on the face of her cabinet doors. Get Expert Advice Video: How To Choose Kitchen Cabinets.

For many of us, it is the most used as well as where we spend most of our time, whether we’re preparing nutritious meals for our families, preparing to entertain large and small crowds, or just sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee with an old friend. Regardless of whether your kitchen is large or small, it seems always that this room tends to be the gathering place when people visit the home. It’s been said that kitchen upgrades can significantly increase the value of a home. A total kitchen renovation is a costly, timely and arduous task but there are ways to update and renovate your kitchen without inconveniencing your family, disrupting family life and more importantly, without having to spend a small fortune. So take from some of these tips and perhaps you can use the savings to travel someplace special instead!

Freshen up your walls. A little fresh paint can work wonders. Kitchen walls get dirty and grimy easily and this can make a kitchen seem older and dingier, even if you wipe down your walls regularly. Try adding some color to your walls.

4) Window Treatments – A Must-Have Accessory. It’s simple—a home without window treatments will look unfinished and cheap. Fortunately, window treatments are.

Color can greatly transform your space. If your kitchen is white why not consider going green, grey or blue? Colorful kitchens are very much en vogue these days as seen in some of the world’s top decorating magazines. Feeling bolder? Why not try wallpapering your kitchen walls. Wallpaper can wake up a room and add energy and buzz. The kitchen is a perfect room to wallpaper!

Wake up tired cabinets. Replacing cabinets can be very expensive and a large undertaking. If your cabinets aren’t terribly old; if they’re in good shape but just out of date, a new coat of paint or a dark wood stain can easily upgrade and update your cabinets.

A fresh coat of white high gloss paint will lighten, brighten and open up your room. If you’re a color person add some bold color to your cabinets and make a statement. If you want a more masculine look try staining your cabinets a darker, richer color. If you do opt to make your cabinets darker consider your light source.

A kitchen should never be too dark. You may need to add more lighting or make your existing lighting brighter. A lighter wall also makes an elegant contrast to the darker cabinet and will add some light to the wall. If you aren’t ashamed of what the insides of your cabinets look like you may want to remove the cabinet doors altogether or replace them with glass doors. Have some fun and paint the insides too!

Replace your countertops. This can be pricey but there are many affordable options out there. There’s really no way to quickly wake up tired countertops. Some people may advise you to paint, but I won’t. This is one area where a small investment will pay out well in the long run. Look into alternative materials such as wood, cork, concrete, even laminates. Replace your hardware.

Something as simple as replacing hardware can be an instant game changer. You like your cabinets; they’re fine just the way they are, but you’re not wild on the hardware.

You will be amazed at how something as seemingly simple as a drawer pull or handle can completely change the look of a cupboard or drawer. Add some green. Another way to add color to your kitchen is to add a few plants. Plants evoke a sense of calm and health. Plant some herbs and keep them in pretty pots so that your plants are functional as well. Depending on the size of your kitchen you can add a few hanging plants or a large standing plant.

Add a plant to a baker’s rack or your bookshelves. Add plants to the tops of your cabinets – but don’t forget to water them! Create a kitchen library. Proudly display those cookbooks you’ve been collecting over the years.

Display them proudly and prominently; let them be a focal point in your area. Put up some shelving, invest in an inexpensive book case or place them in a cabinet and remove the door.

Keep books away from the sink area where they can get wet, and I would suggest keeping them off kitchen counters as the counters themselves can get dirty and grimy. Hang them up! Pick up a hanging rack for your pots and pans. There’s something warm and inviting about a kitchen with a pot rack. It suggests that the owner likes to cook and entertain. When you pull the pots and pans out from the cabinets you instantly open us space for more storage and let’s face it, who has ever complained of too much storage? I didn’t think so!

Other ideas. Your toaster is tired. Your coffee maker is stained and looks terribly sad on the countertop. The food processor looks as though it’s served an army! This can also be an effective way to add bursts of color to your room. Small appliances no longer come in just black and metal these days, but are available in a rainbow of colors that not only serve a purpose but are also visually appealing.

Hang photography and paintings on your walls. Don’t keep your artwork limited to other areas of the home, bring them into the kitchen! You could also consider changing your lighting. Add a chandelier over your kitchen table or some elegant suspended lamps over your cooking area.

The Best Paint Colours for Your Oak and Maple Cabinetry - Maria Killam. Today’s guest post is from Kelly Bernier, interior decorator in beautiful Rhode Island. Welcome, Kelly! As a designer and True Color Expert, I get asked about color a LOT, including by other design professionals. I was pretty happy to answer Maria’s questions while she’s out of the country, and (unsurprisingly for anyone who knows me) the blues are going to come up a lot. I just love the blues! Don’t worry, though.

If you have a different favorite color than me (and most of the world!), I’ve still got some advice further down about how you can choose the very best one for your space, and to coordinate with your maple or oak cabinetry. What’s your favourite colour? Why? My favorite color has always been blue. I adore dark navy blues, and that is evident in my home!

Blue is such a great neutral, and it works so well with other colors (even pinky beige!). When designing this room (below), I focused on the stunning view, which we maximized by foregoing drapery and using made- in- nature colors. My favourite item in this room is the blue area rug!

What was your biggest colour/design mistake? My biggest design mistake was early on. I had a client purchase a sofa online without trying it first. The client hated it because it had a wide seat and was very uncomfortable to sit on.

I learned a very expensive lesson when I had to pay for shipping to have the sofa returned! Thank goodness it was not a custom piece.

What is the most important colour lesson you’ve learned? My most important color lesson was learning the undertones with Maria. Beiges, whites, and grays are easy to work with now that I know what color lies underneath them.

Another lesson that was invaluable was which colors work best with maple or oak kitchen cabinets. So many homeowners have them, and replacing or painting them isn’t always an option (or even desirable). For this client (below), the cabinets were staying, so we had to find a way to work with them. I’m not sure what I would have chosen before taking Maria’s class, but luckily, I didn’t have to worry about that. I used what I had learned to incorporate a terra cotta wall color that coordinates really nicely with the cabinets: If you have oak, go for drama!

Any charcoal shade will do. When it comes to colour, what’s hot? Which colour do you think is timeless, and which colour trend would you love to see disappear? I think navy blue is hot!! Has been and will continue to be because it is classic and works well with so many other colors. Maybe I’m biased because I love blue so much, but I’d love to know if you all agree! I do hope Marsala dies a quick death, and my clients seem to agree since I haven’t been asked to specify this color for even a single design projects.

My vote for the next color of the year is ! I think it is time for a beautiful, deep blue to take center stage. These two navy blues are my favourite! What do you think is one of the biggest mistakes homeowners make with colour?

The biggest mistake is being in a hurry and not taking the time to sample the paint colors at home first! Please, please, take an extra 2. After you have narrowed the paint color selections down to two or three, buy sample jars to bring home. Paint your colors on poster board, and move the boards around the room you want to paint: day and night, up and down, in natural light and shadow. This will make it crystal clear which color you love the best in your home.

Color really changes as the day goes on, and you don’t want to end up with a color that looks awesome at 9am and depressing at 3pm. Which part of participating in Specify Colour with Confidence. During my very first appointment after Maria’s class, I was confident that I could help my client choose the perfect color, and I did!

I felt like a real professional using my large sample boards, and to this day, I impress my clients when I walk in the door with my large boards. Thanks for having me, Maria!

I look forward to chatting with all of you in the comments, and I’d love to see you back over at my blog, too.—Thanks, Kelly, for all your great tips and advice! I’m beginning to see a theme with all these guests posts and it is that BLUE IS BACK. How much blue is in your house? If you’d like to become the next True Colour Expert.