Ideas for a cheap kitchen update

Depends on your budget. In order of cost:
1. Buy a couple of tester pots and paint a few geometric shapes on stretches of wall.
2. Paint one wall a bright colour.
3. Paint the tiles.
4. Put up a big colourful noticeboard.
5. Swap to brightly coloured kettle, toaster, visible mugs, flower pots in the window etc
6. Paint the whole kitchen.
7. Change the light fittings.
8. New worktops.
9. Change the cupboard doors - apparently they can look "so old fashioned" according to one kitchen firm I spoke to.
10. New bright room doors.
Depending on your boiler you may even find just cleaning the walls and ceiling thoroughly makes it look better.
Have fun.

Pinterest is brilliant for ideas

try covering your tiles with wallboards ,the ones you see in bathrooms ,they're not too dear and they come in some wood effects and Black and white .Gloss or matt .It transforms the walls and makes them look more up to date

Sounds like a lot of work and paint isn't cheap. I want to revamp our utility and thought I might just replace the doors. They have some really nice reasonable once in Ikea.
Let's know how it goes

You can get new work tops put over your old ones plus change cupboard doors without changing the carcass

What is GBIDC to the ignorant please.

I recently had a new modern worktop, a expel air chimney in black, a new sink top and mixer tap and new fashionable floor laid. It came to around £1300,much cheaper than a new kitchen and definitely gave it a face lift. My kitchen is ten years old and was beginning to look outdated.

I've successfully painted kitchen cupboards, it makes such a difference. The key is good preparation. You need to give them a good clean with sugar soap before doing anything else as no paint will adhere to grease. Go for it

Look on Pinterest lots of ideas and tips ....

We had a new sink, laminate kitchen tops and new unit doors. Didn't even have to empty the cupboards!! We used a company called Kitchen Magic but sure there are local companies too. Very pleased looks like a new kitchen!

Another vote here for chalk paint. I just painted an armchair with it! It takes a lot of paint, and you have to use wax, but I was inspired by the one on GBIDC a while back.

Goodness, I'm so inspired having read all these. gettingonabit your kitchen sounds lovely! And Norah, yours does too but it sounds like it was a lot of work. I'll be getting down to B&Q this week then and see what they recommend in terms of paint. Quite relieved to hear that other people have done it with such success. Knew gransnetters would have the answer.

We painted the kitchen cupboards in a holiday home at the sea. I think special care need be used near water for the paint to dry properly (time to cure coats and sunny drier day).

We washed all over with ammonium mixed to half with hot water. Then rubbed down with 0000 steele wool. Then washed with ammonium again and waited a day to totally dry. We painted 3 coats (extra days to dry and rub 0000 between coats) with quality kitchen satin. The interior, shelves, and the cupboards white and the door fronts various different colours of sea blues. The island is solid navy for a calming contrast.

Carefully cleaned, rubbed, and cleaned again and spray painted the old hardware and lighting bits to be "hammered texture" silvery. Lovely and has held up quite well.

To all the work involved do use the best quality paints.

I have seen a few pictures of kitchens that have been re-vamped using chalk paint. It inspired me to use it on some old pieces of furniture made of dark wood. The results have been very pleasing, the chalk paint is easy to apply and you don't need to sand the wood beforehand. Just get painting

We recently replaced our kitchen unit doors, replaced extractor fan and hood and redorated kitchen for less than £400.

Back in the 80's I painted the formica cupboard kitchen doors with a wonderful paint branded by Woolworths. It was so hard wearing. I chose Mercury as a colour, very on trend grey now. When we had the kitchen refitted, I advertised and sold the units and the cooker. The new owners were delighted as they were solid wood units and the builder had removed them carefully for us.

Meant to say special paint for laminate.

My friend was in the same situation. she painted the tiles and the kitchen units adding new handles. It really looks good and now instead of getting a new kitchen, she has the extra money. Ask at a diy shop, there is special paint for cupboards , otherwise rub down, undercoat, and away you go.
Would not think dipping is necessary.

Do you have to do a lot of preparation before painting? Someone recommended 'dipping' them first but that would have to be done professionally I imagine.

Yes, this works. I'm not the world's best painter, but painted all my kitchen cupbard doors etc, and fitted new handles... what an amazing difference!

I have also seen some kitchen cupboard doors spray painted by a car sprayer.
They had a lovely smooth finish

New handles can help update a look
Also colour matching toaster/kettle and tea, coffee, sugar jars.
The range do nice reasonably priced matching microwave & kettles

We painted our kitchen cupboards in an eggshell paint. That was about 10 years ago. We also replaced the door handles. These were not expensive and can be bought online or somewhere like B&Q.

Redecorate the kitchen and replace the blind/curtains and drying up cloths

DH painted our kitchen cupboard doors a while ago as they were oak and are now cream. It transformed the room but took quite a few coats.

Yes, my DH did this years ago when I was stuck in hospital, and we had only a little spare money.
He replaced all the kitchen unit doors - they were cheap & cheerful but my goodness it made a difference!