Decorating a home can be a trying thing to do with the best of budgets. The fact that you do not happen to have large lots of money lying around should not prevent you from having a lovely kitchen to call your own. The kitchen is the heart of any home and you want this place to be one that invites everyone to come, gather, and pitch in (one can always dream right?). This is the reason why you want your kitchen to shine above all other rooms in your home anyway. The kitchen should radiate warmth and home to all who enter.
Truthfully, there are many things you can do in your kitchen that will greatly affect the overall look of your kitchen without changing anything structurally in your kitchen. If you have wallpaper, remove it and try paint. There are all kinds of great things you can do in the kitchen from plaster, which goes amazingly well in a kitchen, to faux finishes and textures, and glazes for added effect. The walls in the kitchen are your canvas and the world is at your disposal. Just remember to try to tie the walls to the floor and cabinets or at least to the floors and cabinets you hope to have in your kitchen someday.
In addition to painting the walls in your kitchen you may also want to consider painting, staining, or antiquing your cabinets. I know that some jaws just dropped to the keyboard. How dare I suggest such a thing as painting wooden cabinets? The answer is simple really. It is much cheaper than replacing them and much simpler than staining them. Really boils down to a matter of choice. My first choice would not be painting but then again, there are times when painting is a viable option. It will greatly change the overall look of the kitchen if nothing else.
Moving right along. Another major change that is not terribly expensive to make in the kitchen is hardware. The simple act of replacing door handles and drawer pulls on your kitchen cabinet can result in an almost instant facelift. When these changes are combined with painted or stained cabinet effects are nothing short of amazing in many cases. It's the little things that often have the greatest impact so keep this in mind when planning your changes.
The floors of your kitchen are another rather inexpensive change that can be made despite preconceptions. Remember that you do not have to go up on the line to enjoy the big changes in the look of your floor. There are laminate floors that are rather inexpensive to install, like many forms of peel and stick tile that can bring about impressive results for very little effort and without professional skills. All floors that you are capable of installing yourself will save a lot of money and can make a huge difference in the appearance and your enjoyment of your kitchen.
Perhaps the biggest coup of all when it comes to changing the look of your kitchen is the ability to apply stainless steel PVC contact paper to your kitchen appliances to give them the instant appearance of stainless steel. This is a very inexpensive way of updating the overall look of your kitchen in minutes and at a cost less than replacing an appliance. For your countertops an inexpensive and terribly disruptive alternative to replacing them all together is to apply peel and stick tile over your existing countertops.
As you can see there are many ways that you can improve and increase the warmth and coziness that you want your kitchen to convey without breaking up the piggy bank in the process. More importantly, you should think about taking on one project at a time, you can make adjustments in your own time and as finances permit.
