4 tips for giving your kitchen a fresh new look
- Difficultyeasy
- Cost45-100 €
- Duration3 - 8 h
To make your kitchen look as good as new, you don't have to get a brand new fitted kitchen. With a bit of elbow grease and a little bit of cash, you can renovate your kitchen yourself. Just follow our 4 top tips.
Paint the kitchen cabinets
To apply new paint to the kitchen cabinets, first of all, unscrew the cabinet doors or take them off their hinges – depending on the type of doors you have. Afterwards, remove the handles if there are any. A cordless screwdriver such as the IXO will come in handy here.
You can then sand down the kitchen cabinets one by one, firstly using coarse sanding paper (120 grit), then with fine sanding paper (180 grit). Bear in mind that the smoother the kitchen front surfaces are, the finer the sandpaper you need to sand them down. Make sure you secure the cabinet door you're working on firmly onto a table so that it doesn't move. Once you've identified the direction of the grain of the wood, ensure you sand it down along the grain.
Once you've sanded down the cabinet doors, it's time to paint them. Cover the floor and the rest of the kitchen units with a protective film. Then stir the paint and prepare it in line with the paint spray system instructions. Apply the paint evenly and let it dry as per the instructions. If you like, you can paint the rest of the cabinet as well. Once the paint has dried, you can attach the handles to the kitchen cabinets and hang the doors back on their hinges.
You can also sand down and paint kitchen cabinets that are coated with a layer of melamine resin. But take extra care when doing so, to make sure you don't leave scratches on the surface. To keep the surface smooth, sand it down with 240-grit sanding paper and wipe the dust away with a cloth afterwards. Then apply the primer. Once it has dried, apply the food-safe paint to the kitchen cabinets using a brush.
Fit the cabinet door handles
You can give your kitchen cabinets a new look by simply changing the door handles. All you need to do is unscrew the old handles using the IXO and measure out where you want to put the new handles using a folding ruler and pencil. The self-drilling screws mean that no pre-drilling is required and you can screw in the handles directly with a cordless screwdriver. Secure the handles with a screw clamp to make sure they don't slip.
Depending on the type of kitchen cabinets, you have and, more importantly, the kind of handles they have, you can sometimes end up with unsightly holes. You can fill these in using wood filler (which comes in various colours) before simply removing the excess filler with a trowel. Ensure that you've filled in any holes you want to get rid of before you start applying the paint.
You can give your kitchen a completely new look using the right materials and matching handles. Minimalist door knobs in brass or gold hark back to the 50s and 60s – as you can see for example in our mid-century chest of drawers. Or if you prefer copper-coloured handles, you can easily try out the copper trend for yourself in your kitchen.
Coat your kitchen counter
Want to renovate your kitchen but keep costs down? You can easily revamp your kitchen counter using adhesive film.
Simply mark out the dimensions of your worktop on the back of the film and add around 5 centimetres to each side. Then cut the film using the IXO fitted with a cutting adapter. Next you need to get sticking: pull the film over the worktop bit by bit, starting from the shorter side, and press it down using your hands and trowel as you do so. Flatten out any air bubbles as you're going along. Continue doing this until you have smoothed down the film over the entire worktop area.
Sticking down the corners: start at one corner and work your way over to the opposite corner. Once you have reached the opposite corner, turn it over, remove any excess film from the edges and firmly stick down the rest of the adhesive film. Remember you can simply cut away any remaining film at the end using the utility knife. Your renovated kitchen worktop is now ready.
If you have already pressed down the film but you still see air bubbles, you can try removing these using a hairdryer or a heat gun. Heat them up using hot air and try flattening them down with a trowel once again.
Mount the wall panel
Do you have no wall tiles in your kitchen or would you like to swap them for new ones? You can do this cost-effectively if you cover up your kitchen tiles with a wall panel instead of renovating them. Wall panels can be made out of thin metal, plexiglass or other synthetic materials and you can find them in DIY or furniture stores.
If you can't find the panel you like in the right size, you can cut it down using a jigsaw. Depending on the material you are cutting, you should use a metal blade (for cutting metal) or an acrylic blade (for cutting other materials such as glass or plastic). Mark the dimensions on the panel using a folding ruler and a marker pen, secure it with screw clamps and cut it using a jigsaw along the dimensions you have marked. We recommend wearing protective gear for this step.
To mount the panel, apply mounting adhesive to the back and then hold it against the wall or kitchen tiles. Press down the panel as firmly as possible against the wall or tiles and make sure it doesn't slip. It's best to ask someone else to help you do this step. A spirit level or a cross-line laser will help you keep it level.