Ever wonder how some kitchens look so high end, and yours well doesn’t? Here I am going to teach you how to make your kitchen look more expensive with no renovations and very little effort. The kitchen is the heart of the home so having a beautiful space to hang out and cook in is so important. With just a few simple upgrades any kitchen can look like a more elevated and inviting space.
Last winter I decided to take on the task of remodeling my kitchen with my friend. We redid the counter tops, backsplash, painted the cabinets, and put in a new laminate floor. You can see a before photo on one of my old blog posts here. All of these things obviously made a huge difference in the appearance of the kitchen. Doing it myself (with a friend) did save a ton of money. However, if you don’t have the budget to do one or all of these things, there are other ways do make your kitchen more high end.
Budget
As I just said, making your kitchen look more high end doesn’t have to cost a lot. With just a few inexpensive upgrades you too can have a designer looking kitchen.
Coordinating Accessories
First up get your accessories matching. Nothing kills the vibe of a room like a million different mismatched colors. You may have beautiful new cabinets, but if everything surrounding them clashes with the cabinets and with the other items in the room your room will still lack cohesion. And if you have old cabinets matching accessories could make them look more fresh by adding cohesion.
Start out by choosing a color palette for your kitchen. I would say pick two to three colors and have your accessories around that color palette. For my kitchen my colors are green, gold, and black.
To keep the color palette interesting you can add in textures to keep your two to three color palette interesting for the eye. In my kitchen I have incorporated a lot of wood, glass, and marble textured things to add interest, rather than everything just being one texture.
How to coordinate kitchen accessories
Now that you have your color palette and textures in mind what do you want to coordinate? Good question! Make everything in your kitchen exist in these colors and textures that will regularly be out and visible. From canisters to containers, soap dispensers, paper towel holders, cooking utensils that will be on display, cutting boards, even small appliances and the list goes on.
I installed a gold faucet and gold cabinet handles into my kitchen. My silver paper towel dispenser had to go. Against all of the gold the silver paper towel dispenser stuck out like a sore thumb and drew the eye to paper towels. Paper towels should never be the focal point of your room. To replace the silver paper towel holder I instead purchase a black one that went better with the rest of my color palette.
What should I do with my old Kitchen accessories?
I’m the type of person who will hang on to things forever. If it ain’t broke I don’t need a new one. I have a blue colander that I bought in college that I still have because it’s so sturdy. I Also have a block of Ikea knives that were handed down to me 10 years ago so they must be pushing 15 years. They still work great ,but they aren’t very pretty.
Obviously, you can donate all of this stuff to a second hand store. I have also found that if I post it on my Facebook buy nothing group or Facebook marketplace for free things always go quickly. A great time to get rid of stuff is right before back to college on Facebook, your stuff will find a new home in no time.
Kitchen Lighting
The second way to make your kitchen look more expensive is mood lighting. Nothing makes a kitchen look automatically look more high end ,not to mention cozy, than some good mood lighting. There are a lot of ways to achieve good mood lighting in a kitchen.
Types of under cabinet lighting
Under the cabinet lights is functional as well as beautiful. There are tons of options for putting lighting under your cabinets. First is the most traditional way, getting an electrician to come and install hard wired lights. This is probably most ideal. If you are like me though and you aren’t in your forever home and you have other places to spend your limited money some of the next suggestions could be for you.
I have seen an endless amount of options floating around the internet for under cabinet lights that you don’t have to hardwire into your wall. There are bar lights that you plug in ,and there are rechargeable bars. There is also a rechargeable puck light option. Just search amazon for “under counter lighting” and find what works best for your needs . I personally have the rechargeable puck lights in warm white, and they make my kitchen so cozy at night.
Lamps and Candles
The absolute easiest way to add mood lighting to your kitchen is with a lamp or a candle. My grandma used to have a tiny lamp in her kitchen that she would leave on at night. It always felt so cozy walking into the kitchen to grab a snack or make some tea at night with the little lamp on.
Candles are also a classic way to add to the mood. Maybe with all the smells of a kitchen opt for some scentless candles in a cute holder ,or even battery operated ones so they could be left unattended.
If you don’t like the idea of a lamp or a candle then maybe a candle warmer is for you! I love mine, it lets off such a pretty glow. I don’t mind a scented candle in a kitchen and I think the candle diffuser makes a candle scent a bit lighter smelling than if it is just burning.
If you have some open shelving some twinkle lights wrapped into the shelving decor could be quite beautiful too.
Cabinet Handles
The number one thing that I think made my kitchen look more high end was when I added cabinet handles. It took it from college apartment kitchen to Architecture Digest for around $100.
One thing to keep in mind when choosing handles is the cabinet size they are going on. I got some matching ones for all of the standard size cabinets. I got smaller ones for drawer pulls, and then I purchase two handles that were much longer for my pantry which is a much taller cabinet door.
DIY Cabinet Handle Installation
You will want all of your handles installed in the same location on each cabinet. A quick hack for this is making a template out of a piece of card board. Decide on your first cabinet where you want your handle to go. Then measure that out on your piece of cardboard and pierce some holes where you will need to drill. Then you just have to hold the template up to each cabinet and drill. This will ensure everything is even. You can fix a wrongly drilled hole in a cabinet, but take it from someone who has done it…it’s just annoying to have to fix, not hard, annoying.
Bring Decor Into the kitchen
Since you spend a lot of time in your kitchen it only makes sense that it should have beautiful decor in it to enjoy.
Adding plants can bring life to a kitchen, plus in my experience a lot of kitchen’s have at least one big window that plants would like.
Another easy element to bring in is some framed photos or prints. Food related ones are obviously a no brainer, but anything that makes you happy works. I have a print from an artist I found on instagram of a beer can, it brings me joy and I love looking at it.
Functional things can also double as decor. Think cook books, bottles of homemade extracts or canned foods, containers with dried food, or even some appliances like a kitchen aid or a beautiful kettle. I
swapped out my dish strainer for a beautiful stone mat that almost instantly absorbs water. Functional items are my favorite because too many non-functional items I feel can just get in the way. This is definitely just personal preference though.
Kitchen Organization
Keeping counter tops minimally cluttered really makes a space look nice. I keep appliances I don’t use everyday tucked away in a cabinet, like the toaster. I only use it about once a week so taking it in and out of a cabinet is no big deal and alleviates clutter. I don’t tuck away things I use everyday though, like the coffee pot.
Another thing I found recently really makes a difference is cord management. You wouldn’t think it ,but just tucking away cords that are on appliances that are out on the regular makes a huge difference in the appearance of a space. I found these cord minders on Amazon and have put them on everything in my house, they are so cheap and easy to use.
Final Thoughts
There you have it. With a few simple changes your kitchen can look more high end. You definitely do not need to gut your kitchen to make it look more put together. So give a few of these ideas a try and I’m sure you’ll love your kitchen even more.
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The kitchen looks ABSOLUTELY amazing!