Today I wanted to share with you how we gave our kitchen a makeover for under $2000. It took us several months to finish all the small details but we are beyond happy with the final results. I hope this post will inspire you to get your tools out, get dirty, and get the kitchen you love!
Let’s start at the beginning!
When we bought this house nearly 11 years ago it looked like this which mind you had been updated at least once from when it was originally built.
Before we moved into the house, I sanded all the cabinets down and got rid of the ugly gold floral hardware but had to keep the tile. It wasn’t in the budget at the time because we were broke newlyweds that had just bought a house.
Fast forward 5 years later and we could finally could afford to change the counter tops to a solid surface! We chose a pretty heavily patterned granite. Now I know some folks hate the idea of having the same back splash as the counter top but we had to buy two slabs to cover the counter and had 3/4th of a slab left. We figured it would be a better use of our money to use the 3/4 slab and not waste it rather than pay more for a tile backsplash. It was an upgrade from all the tile and I personally loved it at the time (now it’s a bit busy but it’s still nicer than before!).
Fast forward to 2018 and I wanted a change but I didn’t want to spend alot of money. I got out my paint brushes and transformed my kitchen for $100 by painting my cabinets. It took me 2 weeks to do the entire kitchen because I changed my mind part way through; it probably would have been done in one week if I had stuck with my original idea (or started off with the two tone idea I completed the project with). I originally wanted an all white kitchen then got cold feet and did all grey and hated it. I decided I would split the difference and do a two toned kitchen. You can watch the whole transformation with lots of tips in this video here
The paint changed the whole look of the kitchen and even the adjoining dining room; I loved the change (and the price!) It was a lot of work to prep and paint the cabinets but for $100 I couldn’t be happier.
The next step was to rip out the floors that I was never really in love with anyway. The previous owner had added a dark stain to the grout that had also stained some parts of the tile. This meant many parts of the tile just looked dirty no matter how hard I scrubbed; plus the new paint job REALLY made the grout/tile color choice look dingy. I did the demolition work myself and according to quotes I got from contractors (with/without demo) I saved myself nearly $1000.
Under all that tile we found not one, not two, not three, but four layers of linoleum. I cant tell you how frustrated we were; the floor felt like it never ended. We had to rip it all out because the kitchen and dinning floor was 1/2 inch to tall compared to out wood floors plus they tiled/laid linoleum over all the baseboards. So all those layers had to go (plus it isn’t usually recommended to lay new tile over a subfloor of several layers of linoleum). You can watch the demo process in my video below:
With the old flooring going out it was time to decide on the new flooring that would go in.
You may be thinking they all look the same but they definitely did not when placed on our kitchen floor! Some wound up having a fairly strong purple or tan hue to them and some we just didn’t like the pattern or tile dimensions of. We ended up choosing the one my feet are pointing to which is from Lowe’s called Excite Ivory by Anatolia.
Now the next step was to install our sub floor for the tile and we chose to go with Ditra by the company Schluter. Its pretty simple to install and not too hard for a fairly good DIYer.
You don’t need to many supplies to install ditra . You can check out my install video for step by step details on my YouTube channel
The next step was to figure out the pattern I wanted the tile to lay in. Once the pattern was chosen it was just a matter of getting the tile installed.
We had a friend help with the tile installation; he used to do alot of tile work and was a huge help in this stage of the process. He was much quicker actually laying the tile down than I am and he made a few tricky tile cuts that I know I wouldn’t have thought of trying to make!
We had leftover enough in the budget to get rid of my non working gas stove. I had to light it by hand every time because the igniters were not working. It was also white in color and the finish was wearing off in spots. So we upgraded to this Frigidaire 36 inch gas cook top which we got on sale during Memorial Day; remember to shop major holiday sales to save yourself tons of money.
The finally steps to complete the kitchen makeover were to install all new baseboards, paint them white, add recessed lights, and re texture the ceiling. We hired a contractor to do the drywall work because that is definitely one thing I am not good at (and I didn’t want someone to look at my kitchen and tell right away that I did the drywall work!).
If you want to see how I finished the hood or for further details on other steps watch my kitchen makeover on my YouTube channel
I love the way the kitchen turned out! It’s light, bright, and has a modern farmhouse look to it! I hope you enjoyed seeing how much love and sweat we have put into our newly renovated kitchen. You can also watch the final reveal on my YouTube Channel. Make sure you subscribe before you leave so you don’t miss out on more home makeover and DIY videos!
