Faking It: Simple Home Improvement Makeovers for the Kitchen

Bored with your kitchen? Does it no longer inspire your inner chef? It may be time for a simple makeover. Don’t worry, you don’t need to banish your family from the space and eat out every night for the next month (unless you want to). With some planning and a willingness to fake it, you can makeover your kitchen while maintaining a functioning kitchen.

Go bold with a lively trim color – If the trim in your kitchen is as exciting as the the color of whole wheat flour, you need to embrace some color.
* Pick a color that will pick up flecks of the same hue in multi-colored floor or countertops.
* Or introduce a completely new color to a kitchen that’s mostly neutral.

Beadboard fakery on your cabinets – Get the look of beadboard cabinets without replacing existing wood. Cover cabinets with beadboard wallpaper you can paint. The wallpaper is easy to trim and apply. The best part is that you can cover cup cabinet door imperfections in a way that you couldn’t with just paint.

Update old storage units – You can use the same technique on kitchen carts, hutches or large sideboards. Beadboard wallpaper will instantly update your grandmother’s old furniture or that old hutch you picked up at the neighbor’s yard sale.

Splurge on some kitchen bling – Buy some aluminum backsplash tiles and bring reflective surfaces into your kitchen. Choose from a the traditional metallics, including solid or polished copper, silver, tin or gold. These backsplashes are also available in modern black, white or shiny blue. They also come in patterns, from edgy snakeskin to more traditional cross and diamond pattern. The faux metal backsplashes are sold in sheets or rolls and can be glued or nailed to the existing wall, depending on the type you buy.

Paint the interior side of any door – Good riddance to the white side of the interior door, hello, color. Try one solid color rather than trying to paint inside any box shapes on the door. Consider painting other doors facing the kitchen, too, including bedroom or bathroom doors.

Get hooked – Use hooks of all sizes to make your kitchen more practical and convenient. Use them in plain sight, as well on the inside of cabinet doors or along the back edge of a shelf bottom inside a cabinet. You’ll discover plenty of previously unused space in your kitchen.
* Use small screw-in hooks from a picture hanging kit to make potholders accessible.
* Attach small hooks to the inside of cabinet doors to hang small plastic colanders, or to make measuring cups and measuring spoons easier to find, for family baking time.
* Use visible hooks along a chair rail to hang a string of lights any time of year.