Extreme Kitchen Makeover On A Budget
Extreme Kitchen Makeover On A Budget
A Great Kitchen Makeover will Sell the House
When buying or selling a house, most people consider the kitchen to be the most important room in the house. If you have a great-looking kitchen, the house will sell quickly and many times for a premium price. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. If you have a terrible-looking kitchen, you might struggle to find a buyer and most buyers will reduce the price they are willing to pay to compensate for the appearance of the kitchen.
When we purchased an investment house in Corinth, Texas we knew we had to do a kitchen makeover. It really was quite fugly. But real-life house fixing and flipping are not like you see on TV. You usually have very tight margins and a limited budget. So the challenge for this fix and flip would be transforming the ugly kitchen into an inviting space without spending a lot of money. This was a priority but with a $5,500 budget, it posed a significant challenge.
Work with What You Have
Examining the existing kitchen you immediately notice that it was fairly large and spacious, the cabinets were in decent condition but the all-white countertops, cheap sink, and low-end white appliances gave the kitchen a cheap rundown look. We decided we could keep the existing cabinets but we definitely needed to install new appliances, countertop, sink, and faucet. We knew that these improvements would greatly enhance the kitchen but it would not provide the real transformation we were seeking. We needed something more!
After looking at numerous options we decided that adding an island to the kitchen would be cost-effective, better utilize the available space, provide much-needed additional cabinet and countertop space, and greatly enhance the overall feel of the kitchen. It was a great plan but we ran into one small issue – finding a new cabinet that had doors that matched the existing cabinets. After much searching, we concluded that we could not find a cabinet with matching doors but we could find an unfinished oak cabinet that had similar drawers. Eliminating the cabinet doors made it much easier to find a cabinet that worked. We only needed to match the drawer fronts – not the drawers and cabinet doors. And we could stain the cabinets to match.
Add a Touch of Elegance
The island would greatly enhance the kitchen but we still wanted to find a budget-friendly way to add a touch of elegance. To achieve this we decided to offset (raise) the cabinet above the stove and install a crown molding to the top of the wall cabinets. This was a cost-effective option as we were using the same cabinet just moving it up slightly and the crown molding was an inexpensive way to add a touch of elegance.
Before and After our kitchen makeover
Do Not Over Improve
To reduce our cost and not over improve the kitchen, we decided to stay with Formica countertops but selected a color and style that would enhance the feel of the kitchen. Today there are hundreds of available Formica styles, colors, patterns, and textures to choose from. Many look and feel like real granite or stone.
When planning a kitchen makeover, you need to keep in mind that every house has a price limit based upon the overall size, location, style, and finishes. You can put a chef’s dream kitchen in a mobile home and it will not increase the value of the mobile home significantly. If you over improve, you will not get a return on the investment.
Extreme Kitchen Makeover On A Budget | Renovation | OutFactors – Dallas Fort Worth, Texas
