Kitchen upgrade on a budget

Every other room in the apartment has been given a loving hand and made far more personal, so the kitchen was finally up. We'd pushed it to the back, because it felt more involved and because we wanted a dishwasher — and there's no room for one in our current kitchen. To get that wish granted, we'd have to put in a whole new kitchen with different cabinet solutions.

But the kitchen looked tired. The laminate was peeling off in several places, and the wooden worktop couldn't take all the water it got from washing dishes by hand. The walls really needed painting — preferably yesterday. As the icing on the cake, we wanted brass details in the kitchen. So how do you give your kitchen a less cumbersome, affordable but still functional upgrade?

The inspiration here is split into 4 parts: worktop, cabinet doors, handles and wall paint.

All in all our upgrade cost 1726 kr. That includes wall paint, adhesion primer, wood paint, marine varnish, turpentine, brass spray paint and clear lacquer spray. For materials we bought masking tape, 3 extra paint rollers, a brush for the varnish, and sandpaper.

(We also got 1 extra bucket of paint in a different colour. Keep an eye out for the bargain offers — it's almost always possible to get two different colours of paint for the price of one.)

Worktop

The worktop needed marine varnish so it could handle water from the washing-up. It had been oiled before, so we started by sanding it down with an orbital sander. Make sure to clear everything out of the room and close it off from the rest of the apartment. It throws up an absurd amount of dust, so wear a mask too. You really have to go a long way down to sand off all the oil and get rid of the various scratches and dings. We wouldn't recommend doing it with sandpaper alone — you'll never get there and the result won't be even. You can get an orbital sander for under 1000 kr, and it's worth its weight in gold. Put a price on your time and it pays for itself before you've even finished the worktop.

Next we noticed small oil spots kept appearing. To pull the grease out of the wood we washed it with turpentine. It's important to get the oil out, otherwise you'll get bubbles in the marine varnish. We washed with turpentine 3-4 times and then agreed to live with whichever bubbles came. Not all the oil wanted to leave.

Then we sanded again, because wood likes to raise when it gets liquid on it. We vacuumed the table and wiped it down well before starting on the marine varnish. We applied it with a brush, but you can use a roller too. The table got 4 coats and we lightly sanded between each one. The result is a glossy, shiny worktop that's easy to wipe down. In a few spots you can see the burst bubbles, but we can live with that — for now.

Cabinet doors

We washed down the entire kitchen to get the best possible adhesion for the paint. The cabinet doors and drawers are laminate, so we lightly sanded those with the orbital sander to give the paint even better grip. Then everything got a coat of adhesion primer. To check that it had taken, we tried to scratch it with a sharp object. If you can scratch it off, you either need to sand more or wash down better. Once the primer was dry, the painting started. Everything got 2 coats. We need to double-check the colour on the cabinets — it's supposedly identical to the one we have in the hallway, and on the striped arch, but no one's quite buying it. The cabinet colour is a slightly lighter beige than LIGHT 2C, which is more of a greenish beige.

Handles

Our kitchen handles were boring and silver-coloured and went against the brass detail idea. To avoid spending several thousand kroner on brass handles, we tried spray-painting the ones we had. They got washed down well first, then 2 coats of brass paint, and finally a coat of clear lacquer. It's important to follow the instructions on the cans. When it says you need to be 30 cm away, you need to be 30 cm away. We learned that the hard way.

The colour doesn't come out perfectly even, but it doesn't matter much. It looks a bit like brass with a patina, since it's darker in places. They won't last forever — we can already feel that — but they've already convinced us that we want brass handles when these have done their service. It just suits the kitchen better. We'd absolutely do it again — it's not wasted, but it's not a 10-year solution either.

Wall paint

We initially wanted to paint the kitchen the same beige as the hallway — LIGHT 2C from Røverkøb. But the beige didn't come into its own on the doors and looked mostly like a worn white. Luckily we changed our minds with help from our followers on Instagram — and the walls went blue. And the ceiling — because Frederik caught it when he just wanted to be done. The colour is called Light Aqua 1C.

Our hallway and kitchen are the only rooms not separated by a doorframe but by an arch instead. To get the two wall colours to meet nicely, we played around with masking tape. Our striped arch is now one of the best things in the apartment. Both hallway and kitchen are in fairly muted colours, but the striped arch brings a little circus into the rooms in spite of that.

The ceiling needs another coat — but otherwise the kitchen is done and we're happy. Do let us know if you have questions, good advice, or share your own make-over with us if you've used some inspiration from here.

Lots of building hugs, Frede and Chris