Budget Friendly Ideas to Dress Up a Dated Kitchen

At some point we’d love to do a full kitchen remodel with new countertops, appliances, etc. but since that’s going to be a bit down the road, I wanted to make a few budget friendly changes. My goal was just to make our kitchen feel a little less dated and a little more like us without spending a lot of money.

I only had five days to get it done and I barely made it but I’m so happy with the new look and wanted to share the details with you! Hopefully it will give you an idea or two for updating your kitchen even if you’re on a tight budget. Ready to see?! (post includes affiliate links; full disclosure statement available {here})

Let’s throw it back a week and remember what our kitchen looked like before I started:

Here’s its new look!:

These are the five budget-friendly changes I made in knocking this kitchen makeover project out…

1. Added Wallpaper Backsplash

The first thing I did was remove the dated, stained wallpaper which gave it an instant update but the space looked a bit too ultra-white and sterile without anything on the walls. I already had {this patterned blue wallpaper} that I was planning to use for a different project but decided to use it in my kitchen instead as a wallpaper backsplash. Wallpapering around the arched windows in the corner definitely challenged my wallpapering skills but it added a fun pop of color and really made my white cabinets and windows pop:

I got it all done using one roll of wallpaper with a good bit to spare so it’s a great spot to use a wallpaper that you love but might be too pricey for a full room where multiple rolls are needed. I plan to coat it with {this flat varnish} once it’s restocked – it’s perfect for wallpapers that could be exposed to water and moisture in kitchen and bathrooms. Check out {this post} with the details of how I used it in our guest bathroom.

You might notice that I didn’t add wallpaper back to the soffits – instead I painted those (I used Benjamin Moore Simply White in flat) which kept the kitchen feeling more airy and open.

Other ideas for updating your kitchen backsplash on a budget are to use peel and stick subway tile stickers like {these} or tile stickers like you can find {here}. My favorite tile stickers that I’ve come across are {these beautiful tile stickers} that mimic Moroccan tile:

2. Painted Cabinet Frames & Trim

One of the biggest things that was dating our kitchen is the yellowed trim and cabinet framing in several spots – it was most obvious in the area around our oven and microwave:

You can see from this close-up what a color difference there was between some of the trim/framing and the cabinet doors and sides:

I’m assuming it’s because they’re different materials that were prone to yellowing with age. Even our microwave had yellowed with time! There were other spots in the kitchen where this was an issue too so I took all of the upper cabinet doors off,

lightly sanded all of the cabinet frames with 220 grit sandpaper, used a towel and then a tack cloth to get all of the dust off, and then primed them with {this bonding primer} that’s made to stick to almost any surface (I even used it when I painted our tile bathroom floors and it has held up beautifully!):

I used a combination of a paint brush and mini roller to brush/roll it on but I ended up mostly using my paint brush and could have gotten away without using a roller at all. Once the primer had dried and I’d allowed enough time to re-coat, I very lightly sanded again and then painted with Benjamin Moore Advance paint in Simply White (satin finish). I swear by Advance – it’s expensive but so worth it. Any brush marks you leave end up leveling out and virtually disappearing! The only thing to be aware of is that you need to wait a LONG time before re-coating – 16 hours! After two coats of the Advance paint, my cabinet framing and trim looked like new and matched the cabinet doors perfectly with no more ugly yellow: 

We also got an inexpensive new microwave to replace the 15 year old yellowing one and for a future project I plan to build out some framing around it so it’s more integrated into the cabinet frame without the gaps surrounding it.

3. Sprayed Recessed Lighting Trim

I’ve been making my way around our house spraying the yellowed recessed lighting trim white – it makes such a difference! Here’s what our recessed lighting trim use to look like: 

With just a single bottle of {this high heat spray paint} I was able to whiten the trim of all 14 recessed lights in our kitchen area – it’s super quick and easy to do! Simply unscrew the light bulb, remove the trim, spray it outside (I do two coats), and put it back a day or two later. These are the same two lights with a fresh newly whitened look:

4. Swapped Out Cabinet Knobs

A change in cabinet hardware is an easy way to make a big difference! We have knobs on all of our cabinets – personally I like a mix of knobs and pulls but adding pulls to the drawers would require filling old holes and repainting the cabinet doors which didn’t seem worth it. Our old knobs were a shiny brass in a dated style:

I feel like these were the knobs that were put in 80% of kitchens in the ’90s right?! I swapped them out with {these knobs} in the 1 5/16 size & Golden Champagne finish which is a really beautiful matte brass:

I love the simple yet updated style of them and at around $5 each the price is right too! If you have a mix of knobs and pulls in your kitchen {these pulls} that I used when we remodeled our kitchen in CT would complement them nicely.

5. White Washed Countertop Edge

Did you notice one other change from the pics of my old and new knobs? I white washed the wood edge on our countertop to get rid of the orangey tone and make it blend in with the countertops and cabinets a bit more. To do this, I simply sanded the wood down well (first with 60 grit sandpaper and then with 220 grit sandpaper),

and coated the wood edge with {this wood conditioner} and then a coat of {this Simply White stain}:

I’m considering adding a second coat but am going to live with it like this for a bit before deciding whether to whiten it a bit more. I also need to refinish the wood edge on our island countertop – I ran out of time for getting that done!

I plan to seal the wood edge with {this wax} that I’ve used in the past to seal our wood tables (more on that in {this post}). The benefit of using wax instead of using a polyurethane sealer is that the clear wax doesn’t darken the wood as much as polyurethane would. 

There was also one last change that was part of the makeover but definitely not included in the “budget” category –  I added a pair of {these gorgeous counter stools}. They were actually ordered a few months ago to replace the stools that the previous owner left behind and had been waiting for us in boxes for weeks until we were able to get down to NC. I LOVE how their woven nature ties this main kitchen area…

together with our kitchen breakfast nook:

Sources: Woven pendant  |  Round white table  |  Dining chairs  |  Rug  |  Tiered server

There’s definitely still work to be done in our kitchen but with its newly refreshed look, I feel like I can more patiently wait until the time is right for a larger kitchen remodel. And most importantly, our home now feels more like “us” than someone else’s home that we’re living in 🙂

Let me know if you have any questions about our newly made-over space or if there’s anything I missed (if you want to see the whole makeover process go down day by day, I have it saved in an Instagram Stories highlight {here})!

Thanks for stopping by today!