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If I could change my kitchen (or if Ikea had not removed the possibility to change at least fronts) today I would buy the black Kungsbacka and I would be seriously tempted by the new Kallarp in sage green (I told you that green is the new trend in the kitchen!).

We want to make many changes at home so I did not feel like asking my husband to change the whole kitchen too…
But we wanted to make something that can change the look of the kitchen without changing it!

First thing to do was finding out what we did not like most about our kitchen. What we do not want to see anymore?
After discussing it with my husband for a long time, we made a list to start the new project.

Our kitchen is displayed on two walls, one with burner and sink, the other entirely equipped with cabinets.

7 years ago we were younger and quite broke, we made many choice with a small budget. Now I want to try to hack my Ikea kitchen and turn it into something more Pinterest appealing! 

What does give the “cheap” look to the kitchen?

  • Furniture that does not exactly fill the available space
  • Cheap materials
  • Cheap finishes

At the time we had chosen white and gray cabinets with polished finish. I must say that I still like the idea of double color! Oven and microwave have steel details and we chose steel handles.
Today, with my passion for brass, I no longer want steel details. It seems cold, impersonal and too modern.

Handles

The first thing to change were the handles! I had initially looked for brass handles, but besides the difficulty in finding them without falling into Country style or ’70s, they would clash with the steel appliances that will remain.
So the option was black! Black handles, beautiful, essential, clean, opaque! They really helped to change the appearance of the kitchen a lot. It looks like a detail, but it really made the difference.
READ MORE: “WE CHANGE STYLE TO THE KITCHEN: START THE HANDLES”

Plasterboard

We have a fully equipped with cabinets wall and we were lucky enough to have measures that almost perfectly fit the standard of Ikea but I didn’t like the gap above. How to do? The simple plasterboard helped us! Closing the space above the furniture completely changed the appearance of the wall! Now the furniture seems custom made!
Having a kitchen and living room in a single room, we had chosen white furniture for this wall to camouflage them and make them less visible. Now thanks to the plasterboard they almost disappear completely!

Cover panel

The low cover panel of the kitchen was steel-colored, to get rid of this steel detail was enough some paint.

Worktop

The worktop was an Ikea economic laminate solution. Simple, white. Unfortunately, 7 years ago, just as they were building the kitchen, it was slightly ruined. A small dent that I have fixed and hated every day of these 7 years. It’s time to say goodbye to the old worktop! You can not imagine how important the worktop is in the final look of the kitchen!
What color? Clear or dark as the furniture below? We thought about it a lot and finally we chose the white solution!

Sink

If I want to remove all steel details from the kitchen I have to change definitely the sink! Do not be scared, it’s easy!
What color to choose? White as the worktop or dark as the cabinet? I had no doubts: black! Also the tap will be black!

Tap

I love black taps, I want it simple and clean.
READ MORE: “13 BLACK TAPS FOR THE KITCHEN”

Splashback

For 7 years we had white enamel paint on the sides of the kitchen and mustard yellow as splashback behind the stove. At first I was skeptical, I was afraid that it was not as practical as they said and instead is super convenient to clean and gives a great freedom in the choice of color. Our yellow paint was still perfect but we wanted to change.
Tiles! About tiles we will speak more in another blogpost.

Cabinet

Are you ready for the big news? We remove the wall units!
Yes I know, 90% of you will be thinking I’m crazy.
I swear, we evaluated very well the space. In the cabinets we had really few things because one door contained the extractor hood, another the plate rack and in the last one we had very few things. At first we tried moving everything, making a nice decluttering and put everything in the cabinets on the other wall. We made it! We want beautiful shelves!

Hood

Our hood was a small filter hood contained in one of the wall units. Removing the cabinets we will have to put a nice hood!
80% of the hoods on the market are in steel! But there is no more room for steel in our kitchen (although Filippo would love have a steel hood), we chose a beautiful black hood!
The hunt for the hood was epic… the hood that I wanted I went out of production by Ikea, we bought one on Amazon by Faber but it arrived ruined, to save time we chose again Ikea, the Mattradition hood.

Are you curious to see the final result? There is still a little bit of waiting! 😉
Now it will be fun to find the accessories! I want everything white, pink and black with touches of brass! The first purchase? The Ikea pink plates!

At the Home restyling tag you will find all the blogposts dedicated to our home renovation!