Updating the kitchen in our rental property for less than $500.00.

A few years ago my husband and I bought a rental property. We knew that we wanted to find a house that was in sound shape structurally but needed some cosmetic updates. We were looking for a gem that was being overlooked because it was ugly. I have to say we found the perfect property we were looking for. A charming older home with some very quirky design choices. Once purchased, we decided to jump in with kitchen updates first.

It's AMAZING isn't it? The kitchen was decorated in a coca-cola theme and you have to admire that once they chose a theme they ran with it.

We had a lot of updates to make throughout the house so we set a $500.00 Kitchen budget. $500.00 DOLLARS Seriously??? Yes, my husband kept telling me. <Insert big sigh>. I had to constantly remind myself that we were not going to live here. For example, I hated the tiles floors but they were in pretty good condition so we decided they had to stay. I planned the rest of the kitchen around the tile color.

First up was painting the cabinets. We chose a creamy white color to work with the tile. The wood cabinets were in decent shape. We filled the holes left in the middle from the previous knobs with wood filler during prep in order to move the hardware to a more modern placement. Best advice I recieved during the process was to PREP the cabinets. We used plenty of TSP and elbow grease to remove years of dirt and grime off before using a high quality primer and finally paint.

COST: $225.00

Next up was the black and white tile. We didn't have it in the budget to replace so I decided to try and paint them (remember my budget!). I used a white tile paint on the tile (here) and then to add a bit of contrast went back over the grout lines with a grout paint pen in grey (here). While I was very nervous I have to say it turned out fine and as a bonus...it's holding up well!

COST: $50.00

I used a product called featherfinish to update the countertop

I really love concrete countertops and would love to put one in here but the cost was prohibitive. So I found a product called Feather Finish online that was perfect. It's a skim coating that goes right over the laminate and once coated is durable and food safe. Find it here. I will post a step by step tutorial soon. COST $60.00