Refurb or refresh? | How to give your kitchen a new lease of life

kitchen design

Photo Credit: howardpa58 via Compfight cc

Is your kitchen starting to take on a tattered and tired appearance? Have the daily activities of your toddler taken their toll on the sheen of your cupboard doors? When the heart of the house starts to look less than its best it can really impact on how you feel about your home as a whole. Perhaps it’s even prompted you to consider upping sticks altogether?

Fitting a new kitchen consistently ranks among the top ways to add value to your home and can make it more appealing to prospective buyers should you decide to sell. Research by MoveWithUs shows that fitting a new kitchen could add around 6% to the value of your property providing the style and quality is in keeping with the market value of your home. According to Which? the average cost of a new kitchen comes in at around £8,000, while Pinterest is awash for tips to help you improve the look of your kitchen without calling in the fitters. This begs the question: should you completely refurbish or simply opt for a refresh to bring your kitchen back to life?

Is buying new for you?

Once you start looking at the glossy kitchen brochures it’s very easy to get sucked into the new kitchen dream. Not only does buying new mean that you can completely stamp your own style on your culinary space, but depending on the supplier and fitter you choose, you should also get a work guarantee. Employing someone else to do all the hard work for you should save you time and ensure the work is completed to a professional standard, which in turn will make your property more sellable. If you don’t have the money in the bank, many suppliers do offer credit deals, some starting as low as 0% interest. However, before you sign on the dotted line you will need to ask yourself whether it’s wise to make such a substantial financial commitment.

Buying new is likely to be the expensive option, particularly if you have your heart set on a bespoke design complete with luxe finishes such as copper taps, Belfast sink and on trend metro tiles. If you’re tempted to go all out and create the kitchen of your dreams, it’s important not to expect to be able to recoup the full cost of the improvements in any future sale. In theory, an attractive well kept kitchen will add value, however, the amount added to the price prospective buyers are prepared to pay for your home won’t necessarily cover the full cost of your kitchen. You should also consider that individual taste in interior styling can differ greatly, so while you might love your design choices a prospective buyer could end up plotting to rip out your distinctive kitchen to replace with something that better suits their tastes.

Could you get creative in the kitchen?

Whether you simply don’t have thousands of pounds to spare or you’re dying to get stuck into your own DIY project, you may be surprised at what you can achieve in the kitchen with a relatively restrained budget. For those who choose to refresh rather than refurbish, current interiors trends are really working in your favour. Over the last few years there has been a sustained interest in upcycling and retro kitchen styling, so as long as you have a good, solid kitchen, even if its current finish isn’t quite to your taste, you may be unwise to start ripping it out. Factoring in the cost of tiles, new flooring and potentially new worktops, along with oil based paints to change the colour of your cupboards, it’s perfectly feasible to give the space a new look for under £1000.

In fact, taking the DIY approach could leave you with more cash spare for the luxury trappings you’d love to add in. Whether you think your kitchen would benefit from its own doggy shower to clean the paws of your pooch when they arrive home from a walk or you’d like to splash on a new appliance like a more energy efficient cooker, doing it yourself allows you to channel your budget where you will appreciate it most. Perhaps you’ve always dreamed of fitting bi-fold doors to give you more light when you’re baking and better access to your outdoor barbecue? With careful budget management you can order bi-folds online from brands such as Vufold from just over £1,000.

Adding extra storage space is another great way to improve your kitchen without blowing the budget and could be as simple as adding a kitchen island from Ikea decorated to fit in with the rest of your kitchen or fitting shelving to an awkward corner to repurpose it as an open pantry. As this article from Real Homes explains, the pantry or larder has been making a real comeback in recent years, though it does come with practical considerations such as ensuring breakables stay out of reach of little ones’ straying fingers!

*This is a collaborative post*

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1 Comment

  1. September 28, 2016 / 11:26 am

    A fantastic set of tips to injecting new life into your old kitchen, fantastic set of tips.

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