Before & After: Brightening Up the Kitchen

In a lot of homes, the kitchen is one of the rooms that sees the most activity. From hurried breakfasts to family dinners, homework at the kitchen counter to late night parties, the kitchen can be the hub of the home. With all this time spent in the kitchen, it can start to feel old quickly. As evidenced in this before and after, giving a kitchen a makeover can be as easy as a little paint and a new backsplash.

One of the easiest ways to brighten up a kitchen is to give the cabinetry a fresh coat of paint. As you can see from these images, going from tan to white really freshened up this space. Once the cabinets had been painted, we decided to upgrade the backsplash as well. We replaced the green subway tile with a new white tile that further brightens the kitchen.

Another quick upgrade that brings some pizzazz to this kitchen is the addition of color inside the display cabinets. We removed the contents of the cabinets and then painted the back wall blue. To give it even more visual interest, we added a white stenciled pattern. We finished off the look by painting the cabinet shelves white as well.

Painting an accent color inside the cabinets serves two purposes. First of all, it brightens up the inside of the cabinets. As you can see in the “before” photo, the unpainted interior of the cabinet appears dark and shadowy. In the “after” photo you can see that the addition of color dramatically lightens up the space. The color and pattern also draws your eye to the back of the cabinet, giving the space a slightly larger feel.

Take a look at your own kitchen and see how many little changes you can make to give it a dramatic makeover.