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.