Cheap kitchen revamp!

[MotherofBoy]

Do you think this will work/have you done this before...

We are desperately trying to sell our house but buyers pulled out (duee to damp, but that problem now resolved). We haven't had any offers lately and am convinced it is due to the kitchen. We have done up the whole house except the kitchen. It has dark brown wooden 70s cabinets, cream laminate worktop, white tiles with a border of dark green ivy edging tiles, cream and grey patchwork floor tiles. The ceiling is half falling down and has spray painted ivy on the coving.

In a mad fit of 'must do something to sell this damn house' I have just purchased:

• brightly coloured patterned ceramic door knobs
  
• cobalt blue tile paint
  
• vintage style patterned tile transfers
  

My grand plan for Friday night was to paint the horrible dark green ivy tiles bright blue, make a patchwork of the tile transfers on the splashbacks but leaving some white ones - scatter them about, and replace the horrible sticky metal dangly door pulls with the ceramic knobs.

Have you ever done such a cheap refurb? Did it make a difference? Do you think the above will help? For a grand total of £50 I thought it was worth a shot seeing as we aren't going to a) replaster the entire kitchen b) fit new cabinets or c) redo the floor before we move out.

[TranquilityofSolitude]

I made a huge difference to our dark kitchen by painting the wooden cabinet doors light green. The whole room looks brighter and it was very cheap to do. However, I went on to replace worktops and sink/hob later. I do think you can make a lot of difference with a pot of paint and some new handles - whether it will be enough only time will tell!

[MotherofBoy]

Thanks tranquility! Yes I had considered painting the cabinets but that would be quite time consuming re sanding them all etc and as our house is actually on the market and we have a toddler plus a holiday coming up... was hoping I might get away with the above :D I think if it hasn't sold in a few more weeks I may consider it if I have the time! I do think painted cabinets look hugely better

[Eatingcheeseontoast]

Sorting out the falling down ceiling and painting it would probably make the biggest difference.

And I'm not sure making it more quirky is a good idea - plainer the better I'd have thought. So white tile paint, no transfers and white door knobs...

[ineedwine99]

Not done what you did, but we had a company come in and spray paint our kitchen, they did the tiles (white gloss with silver flecks), the cupboards (cream) and the worktops (black stone fleck), looks like a totally new kitchen, took a day and a half to do.
Our cupboards were dark wood, worktop was beige and tiles beige with flower pictures

[MotherofBoy]

Thing is, the whole kitchen does need replacing. There is a hole knocked to make space for a fridge, the floor isn't level and the walls have textured paint. We have considered sorting the ceiling but it would probably cost at least £500 and a lot of time re painting new plaster etc. We wouldn't be able to disguise the fact that a new kitchen is needed even with a new ceiling, painted cabinets etc.

At the moment the kitchen is very dark from the wood and the walls are kind of yellowy from so many years of cooking. I am reluctant to put more white things in the kitchen as I think it will make the white bits that aren't actually white anymore look worse... hence the patchwork approach...

The rest of our house is quite quirky in style. We have a multicoloured patchwork stone floor in our conservatory plus big glass light fittings etc.

[peukpokicuzo]

Wow I didn't know there were companies that would do all that ineedwine!

I revamped an old kitchen with painting the cabinet doors and putting on modern handles and also using sticky-back plastic with a metallic silver finish to cover the end panels and kickboards.

I certainly agree that a bad kitchen can put off buyers. But then again I bought a house with a terrible kitchen (too awful to just give a face-lift to, it needs to be gutted) thinking I would get it redone in the first 6 months and here I am 5 years later still not got around to it.

[ineedwine99]

They were fantastic, took a good amount of hunting, seem a little more popular in the south but not all do tiles. We used onestop refinishers kitchen resprays, they travel anywhere
m.onestop-refinishers.co.uk

[JoJoSM2]

I'm not convinced that there is any point doing what you'd like to do... if he ceiling is dodgy, walls are covered in textured wallpaper and the units 40 years old, then you probably won't fool anyone into thinking it's an acceptable kitchen.

Perhaps you could make sure everywhere else is absolutely perfect, front garden inviting etc. and make sure that the living area is amazing so that people can fall in love with the house before they get to the kitchen. Also, is your house realistically priced and what feedback from viewings have you had?

[MotherofBoy]

JoJo living area is great we had the whole lot and hallway done a year ago and new conservatory 3 years ago. And that's the first bit you see of the house. Garden is fab too - new fencing done in last year, new flower beds etc. Patio needs relaying but that's it outside. Had driveway jet washed. All the bedrooms have been redecorated in the last couple of years. We have a woodburner. New boiler. Kitchen is the only thing, but obviously it is a big thing. I don't want to disguise the fact it needs doing (obviously it does!) just wanted to make it seem more ok to live with (it is functioning just looks horrid) so that people can come and think 'oh I could live with that for 6-12m while we save for a new one, it isn't that bad' rather than 'oh god this is awful it offends my eyes whenever I look at it we need to get rid of it immediately but can't afford to'.

Re pricing we got asking price with our buyers that pulled out. We have since had two other offers but they were a bit low as we are buying a much more expensive property. But we have certainly had the interest and good feedback.

[MotherofBoy]

Problem is our house is in between and you don't often get houses like that. You either get a house that needs modernising where everything is done or you get a newly done up one. You don't often get one that's half and half so it's hard to appeal to both markets I think! Not enough to do for those that want to do up and too much for those that want a newly done place

[abbey44]

If your kitchen layout is ok and the cabinets themselves are sound and you feel painting them would be an option, have you considered having them sprayed?

My house is on the market, and I felt the dark wooden kitchen was holding it back (it's a barn conversion in the country, and the kitchen felt very 'urban', if you get me)so I came on here a couple of months ago asking about whether to paint. I got a resounding 'yes' but more than that, someone gave me a link to a company called Onestop Refinishers, who respray kitchens. I was bowled over by their before & after pictures on their Facebook page, and booked them straightaway.

I'm so glad I did - my kitchen is gorgeous, looks like brand-new and everyone who's seen it loves it too. And the best thing? They only took a day to do it, and it was much, much cheaper than I'd thought and worth every penny! I think prices start at about £300 for a standard size kitchen

Have a look at their FB page and see what I mean. You only have to send them photos of yours for a quote, it's that easy.

Here's mine, before and after....

[AramintaJolly]

OMG Abbey, that's amazing!

[wowfudge]

The tiles don't sound too bad so if I were you I wouldn't​ mess about painting them and sticking stuff on them. What I would do is sort out the ceiling and clean the room thoroughly. Yellow kitchen walls from grease will put anyone off. Better to clean and re-paint and paint the cupboard doors. Quirky, dirty and with building work that needs finishing will appeal to no one.

Or - price it correctly. If you price it correctly then someone will buy it despite it needing a new kitchen.

[MotherofBoy]

Cabinets aren't ok :( see pictures to show textured walls, floor, cabinets, tiles

[MotherofBoy]

As the whole kitchen needs replacing I didn't want to do anything costly as there would be no point as it needs ripping out and the whole thing plastering anyway. Just thought some snazzy door knobs might jazz it up a bit and something to make it feel warmer - the tile transfers, as at the moment it feels very ugly and cold as it is white (well, dirty white), dark green and brown

[wowfudge]

The tiles are fine, if grubby along the grout lines. Seriously, give it a good clean and a fresh coat of paint on that textured wall and replace the missing length of skirting board. Consider painting the cabinets or at the very least using wood stain to match up the colour of that plinth.

Old-fashioned, but clean and looked after will do most buyers. Looking as though you haven't cared for it and have bodged things will make them look very critically at the house and the other rooms and they will wonder what else that they can't see needs doing.

[wowfudge]

Don't attempt to paint the tiles and put blue knobs on the cupboards. Clean the kitchen thoroughly and it will look like a different room. Seriously the time and effort it will take to paint tiles successfully, etc will be better spent with a spray bottle of sugar soap and your rubber gloves on.

[ineedwine99]

Tiles are fine OP. I'd paint the woodwork and look on Amazon for some cheap chrome effect handles/knobs. It's where we got ours from and they are fab.
Maybe try one of those grout pens to whiteb between the tiles? If anyone can recommend them

[MotherofBoy]

I have scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed to within an inch of its life and nothing doing. Don't really want to paint the whole room as like I said the ceiling is half falling down, there are plaster patches missing in places etc. The plinth is actually a kickboard - there aren't any on any of the cabinets and previous owners put those there. The cabinets are on stilts if you get my drift, so the kickboards aren't attached to anything. Don't think there's anything I can do about that. I v much doubt painting the walls will have any effect as they will still be textured walls with bits of plaster missing :/

[MotherofBoy]

Oh the skirting board!! It isn't missing. It is just a 2 inch skirting board painted with maroon gloss

[AppleAndBlackberry]

I think painting the maroon skirting boards would be good and I'd paint the textured walls, coving and ceiling bright white too. Grout pen for the tiles.

[wowfudge]

Plinth/kickboard - same thing. They should be attached to the cabinet legs using plinth clips. They are designed to be removable if you need to access under the cabinets. Because the clips are plastic, over time they get brittle and break. That's probably what's happened in your kitchen. It's not that bad - you've not shown us the ceiling and plaster patches, etc but I bet it could be smartened up without a lot of work and money.

[user1490898476]

My advice - step away from the blue tile paint, coloured knobs and tile transfers! Your white tiles are absolutely fine and much better than blue ones would be. I'd advise to go light on everything. For the cheapest option - paint the cabinet doors and drawer fronts white and attach simple small, white knobs.
For the uneven wall, use this: Polycell Polyfilla Smoothover
And use a 'grout pen' for in-between the tiles to make them look new.

If you have a bit more money to spend, buy new door fronts and sides and a new worktop and no one will be any the wiser that it's not a new kitchen.

But light and bright is definitely the way to go, rather than blue and transfer patterns, I'd say.

Obviously the falling down ceiling isn't going to help. Perhaps it wouldn't cost so much to hire a handyman to fix it up with a thin mdf sheet, plaster and paint over it again? I imagine it would be worth the spend, rather than having to reduce the price of your house for the new buyer to factor in the work.

Good luck!

[MotherofBoy]

The textured wall - not just one wall. It's all the walls. Next to cabinets above tiles up to ceiling. It will cost £500+ to fix the ceiling as we had a quote before. Hmmm I will see how I go and maybe show before and after pics so you can decide! May do one tile with a transfer then can always take off. I think the knobs are a good idea though 😆

[purpleladybird]

I am ridiculously excited by the idea of having my kitchen sprayed. Has anyone used a company in/around Essex? The Bradford company look great and such good value - I miss Yorkshire.