Revamping kitchen - low cost.

[SwanShaped]

Our kitchen is grim. It’s very depressing. Old cupboard with the laminate peeling off to show the mdf. Don’t currently have the cash to do the whole lot into a swanky kitchen/diner. But as an interim for a few years, has anyone just replaced cupboard doors, painted etc? Any tips on where to get new cupboard doors? Anything else that helped it not look so sad? It’s a small kitchen, just a bit bigger than a tiny galley kitchen.

This could be me!! Sorry, nothing to help but very keen for ideas. Peeling MDF is our current vibe

Oh no! Glad it’s not just us. Hope to get some more responses. I’ll bump it later. What’s your current plan or ideas?

Anyone else done this?

Sorry - no ideas atm other than saving up for about 10 years for a new one. But I hope someone else will help

Peeling the MDF from the cupboard doors and painting them afresh can make a massive improvement for little money and effort.
Rustoleum have a new range of cupboard paints out with quite a lot of shades.

rustoleumcolours.co.uk/collections/chalky-kitchen-cupboard-paint

Upgrading the handles to something contemporary is also an idea.

And replacing the worktops can also really freshen a place up. Some of the laminate brands like Duropal or Axiom are actually very nice. And you can get it done with a modern square edge.

I had a quote of £1600 from a local company to replace my cupboard doors and kickboards. It’s not a massive kitchen but there are 9 cupboard doors of varying sizes and 7 drawer fronts so not small either. Haven’t done anything about it yet as I’d like to squeeze a dishwasher in somewhere so need to have a rethink.

Can’t really paint the doors as the fronts of some of them are peeling away and the self adhesive wrapping I bought proved to be a bugger to apply. And I have no patience!

We are going to replace the cupboard doors and one of the wall cabinets (broken), probably a shaker style from B&Q. Most shops seem to have standard size cupboards except for IKEA who don’t do 50cm/1m ones.

If you have tiles then going over the grout with a grout pen can make a big difference too.

I'm having my kitchen units/cupboards sprayed, quoted £575 for 25 cupboards and drawers
Handle replacing can make a big difference, mine were about £20 for 25 off Amazon

If they are a standard size it’s relatively cheap to just replace the doors. We have a utility room with some old kitchen cupboards in, and replacing the doors made it looked so much better.

Thanks for these great tips

Yeah thanks everyone. I hadn’t thought of replacing worktop but it is that very old fashioned curved edge. We were gonna do the whole lot into a kitchen diner, but have decided to upgrade our loft room instead and get a new shower room and toilet put in. Makes more sense as the kids get bigger and don’t want to share a room anymore. Can’t afford to do both things at once so kitchen diner will probably be another 5-10 years away. There’s actually only 10 cupboard doors and four drawers so hopefully it won’t be too expensive. Replace handles is a nice idea too. They’re awful plastic white ones.

£1600 for just a repaint, look at gower Rapide you cam get a whole new kitchen for that!

What’s gower rapide? Don’t think ours are good enough quality for a repaint anyway.

It’s the budget range of big kitchen manufacturer. Here’s the price list
www.gower-furniture.co.uk/3d-flip-book/rapide-plus-price-list/
Most kitchens from big show rooms are a rip off.
They are better quality than b&q ( I did once buy a small kitchen from b&q for less than £900 including oven and extractor fan). Not quite as good quality as symphony kitchens. I’ve fitted a few gower Rapide kitchens though and they’ve been great and will put one in my next house. My parents had the cheapest Lisbon oak units in their utility room and it still looks great after 12 years. Don’t buy loads of drawer units as they put the price up and are a bastard to put together!

We painted our units with specialist paint. It looks great. However I wouldn't recommend if your surfaces are peeling and damaged.

Replacing doors and worktops, maybe sink or hob, should give you a new looking kitchen. Remember to pay attention to end panels etc.

We replaced doors/kick boards/end panels in ours as worktop still in great condition and layout is fine. Was easy enough to do yourself. Cost about £800 though, so if the cupboards themselves and worktops are awful you’d maybe be better just waiting a few years and doing the lot.

Thanks for the information about gower rapide. I’ll check it out. Think I’m gonna leave the worktop and just do cupboards and paint. And change the lights. They’re an awful gold colour. Might even change the door handles round the house, they’re also that awful gold.

I'm in the process of replacing my completely knackered kitchen with an interim one while I save to do it properly (with an extension and reconfiguration).

Current kitchen is 30+ years old and literally falling apart. I didn't want to eat away savings for proper kitchen so doing entire kitchen replacement for £500!

I've bought an old IKEA Faktum kitchen for £150. Solid oak doors which I plan to paint.
Nice second hand cooker for £100
Cork flooring for £20
Worktops will probably need to be bought new but I'm keeping an eye on reduced stuff at IKEA.

Everything so far has been found on FB marketplace - just need a dishwasher now!

Main aim is to get a functioning kitchen to keep us going for another couple of years. If I can make it look attractive too then that's a bonus!

Also, if your cupboards are flat faced, dc fix laminate is really effective, easy and quick! (we live in military, all kitchens are awful)

We revamped our kitchen when we moved into our house by replacing cupboard/drawer doors from:

kitchenandbedroomdoors.co.uk/

It’s cost about £1,000 for the doors, drawers and kick boards, though we have a LOT (22!) of cupboards! It was also easy to order bespoke sizes (eg one for the boiler cupboard).

Wow £500 is cheap. The doors aren’t flat, they have the bevel in the front. Only need 9 so not many. Will look at the most recent link thanks.

Sometimes people put free kitchens on freecycle and freegle

Hi,

I’m maybe late with suggestions but I used a company called onlinekitchendoors.com for my mums house.

Great range of door designs and colours. It took us a few sample doors to settle on the right colour but all we had to do was remove the old doors and clip on the new ones as they provided drilled hinge holes which saved on a fitter.

Very inexpensive & with a trusty screwdriver to remove your old hinges we completed the job over as weekend. Looks completely revamped.

If you need any other details I will try to help you.

Thanks

Or DIY kixthen, they come ready made just need to fit handles etc.
Much cheaper than show room