Kitchen Makeover on a Budget with Wainscoting Wallpaper and Smart Tiles

Thank you to Smart Tiles for helping our kitchen makeover become a reality by supplying us with a beautiful back splash.

I’ve been wanting to update our kitchen for eight years. Can you imagine my poor husband hearing me complain for that long? I know, he has my sympathies, too.

The kitchen is probably the most used room in our house, yet I’ve neglected to spruce it up mainly because of cost. In eight years, we got a dog, got engaged and married, enjoyed vacations and had three children. Remodeling our kitchen just took a back seat.

About a month ago we were faced with the prospect of moving. So, we started fiddling around the house fixing things, because we thought we may actually do it.

Long story short, we didn’t move. But, during our planning stages and somewhere in the middle of a few pros and cons lists of moving vs. staying, I had found a quick and affordable way to makeover our kitchen on a budget. And so, here we are. I couldn’t be happier with our finished project.

Here were some of the hurdles for our kitchen:

• Lack of natural light (There is only one window in our kitchen and it’s above the sink)
• Ugly cabinets
• In need of an updated, modern look

I had read some design websites about how to brighten up a kitchen and a lot of suggestions pointed to lighter cabinets. Ours were a dark wood. I knew painting them a shade of white would immediately brighten the space.

Even though we’d be changing the appearance of our cabinets by painting them, I still wanted them to look different. I wanted them to appear almost new.

Read on to see the five ways we updated our kitchen in a quick and affordable way.

Paintable Wallpaper

While shopping at Lowe’s looking for new cabinet hardware, I spotted paintable wainscoting wallpaper on an end cap. You guys, this stuff is the bees knees.

Once I Googled it, I started seeing how people were using it on their bathroom walls, hallways and even cabinets!

That was all I needed to decide that was what we were going to do. We were now going to have a country chic look by using paintable wallpaper on the front of our cabinets.

The wallpaper was about $20 for one roll. We bought two rolls to be sure we had enough. But, still, for $40, what a cheap facelift!

>> allen + roth White Strippable Non-Woven Paper Prepasted Paintable Wallpaper

Just follow the directions on the package and get to work! We also wallpapered the sides of cabinets, as seen below.

Cabinetry Paint

The nice man at our local paint store recommended Benjamin Moore’s ADVANCE Waterborne Interior Alkyd Paint as the best option for cabinetry paint.

While this paint is oil-based, it’s been great to work with. It covers tremendously well and clean up has been a breeze. A little soap and water can clean up any drip.

Choosing a color proved a bit difficult because I did not want classic white.

I thought it’d look too sterile and institutional, so I opted for a beautiful off-white color called Swiss Coffee by Benjamin Moore.

The cool thing about this color is that even though it’s not pure white, it reads like a white paint in our kitchen and appears soft and easy on the eyes.

This type of paint is a bit more costly than a normal gallon of paint. But, we wanted a good product and only needed one can for the job. It cost about $57 for the gallon.

Pretty, right? The wallpaper made it so easy to paint and we weren’t fighting the wood grain coming through.

New Hardware

Picking new hardware to go along with our newly painted cabinets was fun, but daunting. There are so many options out there. I knew I didn’t want anything fancy. I was going for clean and simple.

While our local hardware stores had an OK selection, we found better prices on Amazon. We paid $115 for hardware for 20 cabinets. And that includes handles and hinges. I’m not going to spell out the math for you, but it was a HUGE savings to purchase them online.

Everybody’s budget is different, so if you can spring for fancy ones, do it! #YOLO

Smart Tiles Back Splash

Adding a back splash in the kitchen no doubt offers a sleeker look. I wanted one badly but knew it would take time to pull off. Have you ever heard of a peel and stick tile back splash?

Smart Tiles is a product that offers no grout, no glue, no special tools and no mess. Which made it completely doable for yours truly!

The design team at Smart Tiles helped us decide which back splash would work best with our kitchen.

They chose the Bellagio Sabbia tile, which is a mix of light beige colors.

The tiles were so easy to put up. I put up all of the tiles with no issue. Just make sure you have a straight edge, level, scissors and box cutter.

Adding the Smart Tiles added a subtle calmness to an otherwise bustling room. Love, love, love!

Smart Tiles prices start at $7.09 a tile.

DIY Wall Decor

And finally, to add a flair of personality, I found some fun, free prints online that I would use as wall decor. I already had three frames hanging on the wall, but those pictures hadn’t been updated in eight years. It was time for something new and fresh.

There are some wonderfully talented people out there who have done all of the hard work for us and are offering free printables on their blogs. Thanks to them, I have three new prints decorating our wall in the kitchen! ??

Buying these in a store could have easily cost me $20 a piece.

If you’ve ever wanted to spruce up your kitchen, there are so many ways to make small changes.

Spring is a great time to do the updates and you’ll feel better about that sore spot in your house in no time.

I no longer dread cooking in the kitchen because it’s not dark and drab.

Turns out even just a fresh coat of paint can do wonders!

What do you think? How did we do?