Is it time to revamp your kitchen?

The kitchen is an important room in any house, but particularly so if you have a family.

The average family ends up spending a lot of time in the kitchen, whether or not you have a separate dining room. In fact, for many households that have two eating areas – with a table or breakfast bar in the kitchen and a table in the dining room – the dining room often only gets used in the evenings or when they have guests over for dinner.

It’s also the room the kids tend to come into at the end of their school day, to snack or to tell you about what’s happened at school. And, of course, you have to be in there before and after a meal, as you’re getting things ready and clearing up afterwards. It’s often said that the kitchen is the heart of a home, and as such, it tends to be on the of the first rooms that needs a refresh when you’ve lived in a house for a while.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to fork out thousands to smarten up your kitchen. Here are some quick, easy and cost-effective ways to give your kitchen a fresh new look.

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Paint

Whip off the kitchen cupboard fronts and transform them with a coat of paint. If you’ve got wooden doors, think about trying a light paint colour, such as cream or yellow, to give your kitchen a completely different ambience.

If you’re not feeling up to painting the cupboard fronts (and be warned, it can take quite a long time to do them all), then take the easier option and just paint the walls with a new colour instead. The great thing about kitchen walls is that they often have a lot of fixed furnishings on them, so your repaint won’t take very long, but it can still be transformational.

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Change the furniture

“Kitchen units” (CC BY 2.0) by Bryn Pinzgauer

While putting in new fitted furniture can be costly, and usually requires the employment of a carpenter or kitchen fitter, there’s nothing to stop you from changing the freestanding items, like the table and chairs, as you can do this yourself and on a variety of budgets. There are some fantastic choices available when it comes to dining tables and chairs. Start your research online for furniture for the kitchen at sites like Vivendo, a specialist importer of Italian furniture. You can give a traditional kitchen a contemporary look with plastic dining chairs, or go for timeless elegance with leather dining chairs. Think about the space you have available – if your kitchen is a little cramped, consider a folding table and stackable chairs, so that you can create more space if and when you need it.

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Accessorise

If your budget doesn’t stretch to new furnishings, you can always change the look of a kitchen with the accessories you have in it. With so many home stores and supermarkets now selling different kitchen ranges at such reasonable prices, you could almost choose a new theme on a weekly basis! For example, you could choose a bold colour like red and then have your bin, bread bin, kettle and toaster all in the same colour. Or, living so near the coast as most of us do in Suffolk and Norfolk, perhaps you might choose a nautical theme and have lots of seaside accessories in your kitchen.

“Changing of kettles” (CC BY 2.0) by sanjoyg

If you need inspiration for giving your kitchen a fresh new look, head out to one of the local craft fairs in the area this summer and you’re bound to get some good ideas, and maybe come home with some new bits and bobs for the heart of your home.