Renovation projects are daunting, but kitchen renovations take the cake! Let’s be honest, revamping a kitchen can be time-consuming and expensive. Your kitchen is the heart of your home, yet the functionality is just as critical as the aesthetics. The good news is that you can transform the look and feel of your kitchen without completely throwing your life out of balance and breaking the bank!
STEP ONE: The Mood Board
The art of creating mood boards should not be exclusive to professional designers and contractors. Every major project deserves a well-thought out mood board. Developing this practice will give you a preemptive vision of how the space will look and feel. It is a very common mistake for DIYers to jump into a project by slapping paint on the walls, buying that faucet you’ve always loved, or putting that light fixture in your Amazon cart without first taking pause to envision the overall aesthetic and harmony of your design choices. Mood boards aren’t just for large projects. They can give you a preliminary direction for your design. Don’t hesitate to use the greatest tool available to you: the internet. Google images, online stores, and paint color websites can help you piece together the look, feel, aesthetic, and “mood” of your design before you even make a purchase.
You don’t necessarily need $20,000 to revamp your kitchen. Paint and fixtures can completely change a space. Some of my favorite kitchen “remodels” involved a $50 can of cabinet paint, a new $100 faucet, a $250 light fixture, and $50 cabinet pulls. If tiling your backsplash isn’t a skill you can manage, I recommend peel and stick wall paper! You read that right! Wallpaper is making a comeback, and it is a DIY-friendly option! Another semi-DIY-friendly option is butcher block countertops.
Ask yourself these questions as you develop your mood board: How do I feel when I enter this room? What style would I like this room to display? What story am I trying to tell? Are there any features I want to jump out at my guests? What isn’t working in my kitchen right now?
STEP TWO: Sourcing Materials
Before you even begin a project, it is important to have a budget in mind. An overall budget will give you direction, freedom for spending, and boundaries when sourcing your materials. This is where online research skills really come in handy! There is no shortage of gorgeous fixtures, tile materials, hardware and countertop slabs on the internet. The challenge is finding these items at an affordable price. For example: one of these kitchen faucets cost $115.99 and the other one cost $1,449.00. Both serve the exact same function and aesthetic! It goes without saying, we went with the cheaper option. Roll up your sleeves and search, search, search!
STEP THREE: Purchase materials, test them out & WAIT!
As you begin to source your materials, I recommend collecting everything you need before you start the project: tools, materials, fixtures, etc. Measure the spaces to make sure you are buying the correct volume of materials. Keep a spreadsheet of all items so you can track the square footage of the flooring, the surface square footage of the cabinetry, the square footage of the backsplash, and your budget.
Go-to websites like Amazon.com and Wayfair.com often run out of materials, which can leave you in a rough situation! Don’t buy your dream tile without ensuring that you ordered enough (and more) to finish the project. When hiring out the work, General Contractors can’t finish the job efficiently or affordably if they have to wait weeks between material deliveries and items coming back into stock. I typically recommend purchasing 10-15% more flooring than you think you need – as a flooring shortage will halt your project. Don’t ever begin demo’ing until you are 100% sure you are comfortable with the purchases, layout, and design choices you have made thus far. Demo’ing your kitchen without a concrete plan is a big N-O.
Before finalizing your hard surface decisions, test out your paint colors on the walls and/or cabinets in 24-inch x 24-inch sections. Test out the paint on ever wall of the space. Why? Because the paint colors you selected in a store may look drastically different once they are in your space. Keep in mind that hardware stores have harsh, florescent lighting while your home may have soft, yellow lighting. This will have a significant effect on the hue of your paint selections! Daylight can also effect your color choice. Make sure the physical materials you chose online match the asthetic you thought you were purchasing.
Waiting is important! Why? Because you may find a better deal on fixtures. If Wayfair sends you a 20% off coupon in the mail, you will be glad that you still have the option to return that not-so-great Amazon fixture. Keep your eyes peeled for sales, discounts, and clearance specials. Some of the best fixtures I’ve ever purchased were on clearance in the back of Lowes hardware store because the box was a little torn.
STEP FOUR: Get going…
The first kitchen I ever remodeled was my own. I had only $3000 in my bank account on a 2000 square foot home that needed a complete overhaul. Do I recommend this? Not really, but I had a plan, resources, and a vision:
- My neighbors gave me their leftover cabinetry.
- I found a $10 chandelier on Facebook marketplace.
- My cabinet hardware was on clearance at Lowes.
- My faucet was on sale with Amazon.
- My contractor friend gave me a discount for some leftover cabinetry paint.
- I used an 11% rebate to buy butcher block countertops from Menards.
- I DIY’d the subway tile backsplash using cheap hand-tools from Lowes.
- I sanded the floors by hand with my parent’s hand sander.
- My friends gave me their old kitchen appliances.
In hindsight, I wish I had made some decisions differently, but I don’t look back on this kitchen with any major regrets! It was a pivotal DIY-moment for me, and I learned a ton of DIY-lessons along the way.
STEP FIVE: Show it off!
If you’ve rolled up your sleeves, worked with you hands, and left a space better than when you started – show it off! Host a dinner party, post before and afters on social media, and don’t hesitate documenting your progress. I often look back on some of my first DIY-projects and reflect on all of the mistakes I made and the lessons I learned. You have to start somewhere – so let’s go!
