Our White Kitchen Makeover for Under $3,000

After we closed on our 1946 home in New York City, we immediately embarked on a gut renovation of the bathroom — taking walls down to the studs, floors down to the beams. A bathroom renovation of that magnitude back then ran about $20k-$30k, so I knew there'd not be a whole lot of budget left to upgrade the kitchen. I had to get creative and focus on things that could be most easily and most economically changed. Here's a look at it "before":

Painting the Old Kitchen Cabinets to Match Kraftmaid Canvas Color

Don't you love our newly painted cream cabinets? They didn't always look this good. We inherited a kitchen that was recently renovated but it was... meh. Just enough had been done to it to allow a seller to list a home as "renovated with granite countertops", but very little design sense went into the choice of fixtures and colors.

Brooklyn Garden Apartment: Kitchen Plan

This is the line of cabinets I'm ordering. Aren't they sleek? I'm over my disappointment that I can't use Ikea cabinets. They don't come in enough size increments for me to be able to make the best use of every inch of space. The main sticking point is the corner sink cabinet. IKEA corner sink cabinets are all L-shaped with a lazy susan in the blind corner. While I applaud IKEA for their price points and innovative thinking, their sink cabinets are all simply too big for the space. Having a corner sink is key to my design. It's the only layout that will give me enough room to fit all the appliances I need and let me locate the refrigerator in the one place where it will not block the line of sight to the French doors and garden.