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As a family that spends most of our time in the kitchen, I am constantly tinkering with ideas for a kitchen makeover and how to refresh the space we inherited when we bought our property six years ago. A couple of years ago we made a big change by whitewashing our floor then ripping off the end part of the roof and creating a conservatory window. Our kitchen went from being dark and depressing to being flooded with light.

Fast forward on a couple of years and I knew our kitchen needed some more love. Our wooden kitchen worktops were in a pretty tragic state – faded, scratched, endlessly plagued with burn marks and the area around the kitchen sinks getting grimmer by the day with damp. So here’s what we did in part one of our kitchen makeover…..

Worktop refresh

A major element of this stage of our kitchen makeover would be to put a quartz worktop layer over our existing shabby worktops using a product called Mini Q Surfaces Worktop Overlay. This is a fast and super cost-effective way of zhuzhing up your surfaces. Taking out existing worktops and replacing them with all-out quartz worktops can be massively expensive so this is a great cost-saving option for a kitchen makeover. We have to give kudos here to the team at West End Stone Supplies who did an excellent job of the installation and were in and out by lunchtime with minimal disruption and mess. A big win for a busy family!

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Out with the old sink

Our old sink was also starting to look very grubby and scratched. Although we really wanted to bring in a ceramic sink, we were limited to what we could do because of the dimensions, so in the end we opted for a more up-to-date version of our stainless steel sink by Rangemaster which looked excellent once installed. We kept our existing taps as we were quite happy with them.

Popping some colour

Now that the kitchen was looking really light with our white surfaces, we knew we had to balance this out with some colour. We wanted something stylish yet functional and most importantly…a set of chairs that could easily be wiped clean but made a statement. Our new replica Charles Eames dining chairs from Lakeland Furniture fitted the bill perfectly, with their vibrant shade of yellow and scratch-resistant finish. Plus they are SO much comfier than our previous hotchpotch of chairs which I am so glad to see the back of. They really do make the kitchen. I’ve also seen some great options over at Sogeshome.

I have to include a little close up of the chairs so we can take a moment to truly appreciate their design and colour….

I then went bold and painted the radiator a teal with Johnstone’s interior wood and metal gloss, and where our old rustic clock was, hung a print that no longer had a home and suddenly it just transformed that wall which was previously blah and nothing. We then replaced our clock with this stylish one and moved it to the corner above the sink.

I am really happy with this phase of our kitchen makeover. Now to work hard and save up for the next phase, which will include building a low island/dining table with storage and having our kitchen cupboards spray-painted in a two tone colour scheme.

What do you think of our kitchen makeover so far?

*Contains review items from Lakeland Furniture