Renovating your Kitchen for under £200

This is something a little different for the blog, but at your request via instagram I'm about to tell you how you can improve your kitchen on a very small budget. Before this whole quarantine malarkey my husband and I had priced up a brand new kitchen at B&Q. We were quite surprised at how affordable the quotation was. Then the world kinda of went crazy and that idea went right out the window. But my desire for a new kitchen was still very strong. I love to cook and the kitchen is very important to me, yet in our new home it was the one room I disliked the most. To put it plainly it was just outdated. So one night I plied my husband with a bottle of pinot and made him watch kitchen renovations with me on Youtube. Next thing we know, we have drunkenly ordered all the items to get the project on the go. Call it a moment of madness, but its actually the sanest thing we have done. We have saved a fortune DIY'ing the kitchen.  It came in at just under £200 but that included wall and skirting board paint of which we have plenty to do other rooms with.

I'm going to section of each part and list the products used incase you want to focus on a specific area! We purchased a lot of materials from amazon and wickes! unfortunately I can't link specific items as they have sold out!

Kitchen cabinets
Our old cabinets were those shiny laminate kind... yuck. They were outdated and the colour made the kitchen look so cheap. I was concerned that the plastic like coating would be an issue with painting but it was actually not that bad. You just need a bit of patience and some elbow grease.
You will need:

• Good quality sandpaper
• wood primer
• wood paint
• clear finish (optional)
• New handles (optional)
• Bodge or polyfiller (if your changing your handles) 

Remove handles if your replacing them. Fill your holes left from your handles with polyfiller and let set.  Sand till smooth and flat with door. Then you can move on to sanding the door itself. Good quality sandpaper is the key here. We at first used cheap finely milled stuff and it took ages. You need quite strong stuff to scratch off all of that protective finish. If you have an electric sander even better you will get through this process a lot quicker! Once you have roughed up the surface you then need to go in with your primer. This will give a better texture for your paint to attach to and will also just help achieve a more even finish. You may need to take the doors off the cupboards to reach all of the nooks and crannies. After creating a good base you can then go over with your choice of colour. Finish by sealing with clear protective finish and then reattach the new handles. 

Tiles

• Tile paint
• protective finish

This step is pretty simple, if you want to change your tiles you can simply use tile paint. A much less stressful experience than retiling and a hell of a lot quicker. It will take a few coats if your tiles are dark and make sure you get a finishing coat if you want them to be shiny. We also looked into stick on tiles, which is also a great option and can transform your kitchen in a few hours but paint was the more affordable option.


Worktops

• Vinyl wrap
• spray bottle 
• stanley knife
• squeegee
• Hairdryer

The principle of changing the work tops is a lot easier than the execution. We bought some marbled vinyl wrap but it comes in all different colours. This is a two person job, probably possible on your own but just easier with team work! To start spray your benches with water and fairy washing liquid in a spray bottle. This helps you move your vinyl around so it doesn't stick in the first place you put it. Because trust me it takes some moving around. Next is to map out your vinyl, we placed ours on the bench and ran the squeegee against the edges of the benches so we had creases in the vinyl as a guide. I did the same for around the stove and cut out this section leaving an inch gap from the actual marking of the edge. We then placed the vinyl on the bench and smoothed with the squeegee. When your happy with placement you can cut off your excess with the Stanley knife. We found it was also helpful to heat the edges with the hairdryer so they clung to the bench more firmly. If you get any creases you can heat them up with the dryer and for bubbles a small pin prick should solve the issue. 

This was probably the most striking part of our renovation and the cheapest three rolls of vinyl only set us back around £15. But remember you have to be careful it will scratch and mark easily, its also not heat proof. 

I've included larger pictures of before and after below. We are super pleased with how it turned out and we hope we've inspired some of you to get your DIY on during lockdown and be as productive as possible during these strange times! We still need to buy some black sockets and to paint our radiator black then the kitchen is complete. But I already have my eye on our next project and thats to up-cycle a pine wine rack we have that the dogs chewed to death! Please let me know if you enjoy these types of posts and if you'd like to see more!

stay safe,
Kels x