Kitchen Remodel Ideas

This full-blown renovation took two months and cost $10,000.

This 1906 Craftsman house in Los Angeles got a kitchen remodel, but instead of stripping away ALL the vintage charm, they refreshed the space and honored previous eras.

Sometimes you have to knock down a few walls to fully brighten a space.

This kitchen goes from plain to punchy with a few low-budget tweaks.

With six kids, a spacious and functional kitchen was a must for this family.

This rental kitchen redo is packed with ideas worth stealing for your own home.

"Most of the stuff we own is cooking and baking supplies, so we knew we would either have to majorly downsize or do something about the kitchen space," says the owner.

I’ve taken mental notes of projects that can be tackled in my parent's home—one of them being the kitchen cabinets.

Full ingredients list? Paint, hardware, accessories, and creativity.

We should mention: This is a total DIY job.

Shannon Tate-Giordano of Shannon Tate Interiors says this kitchen's remodel has changed her clients' lives. "Good kitchens always do."

All the inspo you need to wallpaper your kitchen.

This DIY kitchen redo is full of smart savings.

This 1920s house's kitchen was old, but not in a charming way. The floor was dirty linoleum, the counters had gross tile and grout, the sink was chipped, and the lighting was ugly fluorescent!

You'll want to steal the new cabinet color ASAP.

Wait until you see the ceiling.

I love storing something without taking up any space.

A redo of a 1912 home's galley kitchen makes room for bold pattern.

Open, airy, with farmhouse flair? Count us in.

This DIY gut job yielded seriously impressive results.

The after's lighter, brighter, and way more modern.

It's a little last century, a little this century, and a lot stylish.

Yes, really.

This one-time rental kitchen's total overhaul made it way more functional—and lots prettier, too.

Although it's a rental, Ashley used lots of low-cost upgrades, covering ugly tile with laminate stickers, ugly countertops with marble-look contact paper, and more ideas.

This small change makes a huge difference.

Tiny space, big style—and a whole lot of inspiration.

This was the year of statement-making tile, and these redos are the best of the best.

This budget-friendly trick is timeless, and these stunning projects prove it.

Looking to cook up some style in your own home? Get inspired by our favorite kitchen redos of the year.

This 1924 brick bungalow is old and has character, and needed just a little work to fix it up. The kitchen remodel is a gorgeous improvement that keeps the vintage charm.

Those dollars go a long way in this kitchen transformation.

Almost everything in this townhome's remodel was replaced except kitchen cabinets, which were totally transformed thanks to sage green paint and a new tile backsplash.

The total budget for the renovation was a lot less than you might think, too.

You won't even believe it's the same kitchen.

See if you can spot all the tiny swaps that make this kitchen look brand new.

Lime green: great for slime, not always so great for cabinets.

We see a lot of kitchen makeovers, and these are our editors' favorites of the year... so far!

As this homeowner says, "paint, elbow grease, and lack of fear are my secret weapons!"

From toe kicks to pendant lights, this kitchen's a total DIY job with seriously impressive results—all under $5k!

It's only 582 square feet but it feels much bigger thanks to a bright, modern remodel.

When Betsy and Manny bought this former rental house, the plaster walls were damaged, squirrels were nesting in the eaves, and they didn’t have a working fridge.

This kitchen went from dark and dim to bold and bright—all for only $600.

What to do when your kitchen's perfectly fine but also just fine? Roll out the wallpaper and grab some paintbrushes, of course.

You know what they say: the best home transformations come when the "before" photo looks like it came straight from a horror film (and if they don't say it, they should!).

One of the most dramatic renovations to the condo is the new modern kitchen; most everything was updated save for the original lighting in the narrow room.

Bye bye, golden wood cabinets!

From the crayon-colored kitchen, to the garishly green dining room and more, this Victorian house needed a lot of work. Dana and her husband Brian were up to the task, turning it into an elegant and unique home.

The previous owner had lived in this old house for about 70 years and it required updating.

Sunday was Mother’s Day and hopefully, you remembered to call your mom. Film and television actress Taraji P. Henson took things one step further and treated her stepmom Angie to a complete renovation of her Washington D.C.-area home. With a little help from the folks at Houzz, she transformed Angie’s old, crumbling kitchen, and opened up her cramped living room, which is now airy and full of light. Taraji was 16 when she met Angie for the first time.

Name: Yumi Murayama, my boyfriend ChrisLocation: Vancouver, British Columbia, CanadaSize: 1,060 square feetYears lived in: 2 years, owned Chris is an elementary school teacher and has been teaching over 15 years in Vancouver. Yumi was born and raised in Japan up to high school and studied in the United States. She founded her own interior design company—YU+ME Design in May 2018—and helps homeowners design their dream spaces.

Name: Claire Armstrong, boyfriend Andy, and two cats, Toki and Aspen Location: Glassell Park — Los Angeles, California Size: 1,200 square feet Years lived in: 4 months, owned This house was built in Mar Vista in 1939 and moved to the current lot in Glassell Park in 1956 along with a detached garage from South LA. It has only had one owner who tended a beautiful garden and had interesting taste in wallpaper and DIY improvements.

Dana and Dan Asadorian’s Brooklyn apartment is located in a big, pet-friendly, Art Deco-style co-op building which Dana describes as having a “[g]reat neighborhood coffee shop downstairs, and my favorite bar of all time, Sycamore (it’s a flower shop too!), right up the road.” But while the area was just right for the couple, the apartment needed renovating.

Hannah Wilson and her husband own a home remodeling/design company called Blank Slate Renovations, and the home they currently live in is a 1,300-square-foot condo in Dallas, Texas. They had to remodel the whole space and they had to stick to a pretty low budget. Now finished, it’s got a minimal/modern/organic/Scandi/boho style.

Name: Russell Whitehead and Jordan Cluroe of 2LG Studio Location: Forest Hill — London, England Years Lived In: Owned 3 and a half years, but we have lived in Forest Hill together for almost 12 years. Every now and then you come across a remodel that just sings right to your soul, even surprising yourself.

When TV personality Whitney Port and husband Tim Rosenman were looking for the perfect place to raise a family, they found the 1950s home in Los Angeles online. However, the first time they visited the property, the couple was turned off by the amount of work it would require—especially with a baby on the way.

Gina and her partner Max remodeled a small San Francisco house, and while every inch of the home got a makeover, one of the most dramatic spots to see a transformation was the kitchen and great room they created when they removed an interior wall. Gina writes: “The combination of kitchen, dining, and living room is the perfect open concept. While it’s not the largest it is comfortable and most importantly, functional.

When Laura Gibson and her husband decided to buy this rental home, they knew a lot of changes would need to be made for it to fit their family’s needs. One of the biggest updates Laura wanted to make was to remodel the dark, closed-in kitchen. To create the open-concept great room that Laura dreamed of, the couple did have to knock down some walls in the home, creating a big open kitchen, dining room and seating area.

After living in Brooklyn for awhile, architect Niraya and civil engineer Humberto wanted to bring that “loft” style to Miami, where they currently live. After hunting for a townhouse to buy, they found this home, which was actually used as the manager’s quarters of a Marriott Hotel in the ’70s and ’80s. And boy did it look like it was still in the ’70s and ’80s.

When you’re dealing with a small space, very minimal designs are usually the preferred choice (or so the thinking goes). But when Nancy decided to remodel her Upper East Side studio, she made some bold choices in the tiny six-foot-wide kitchen—things that you might not expect in a room this size, but that give this little space a character all its own. Previously, the kitchen was a bit of a blank slate.

Peggy Wang, Buzzfeed’s founding editor, decided one day a few years ago she was ready to move out of tiny apartment living. “It was like a weird sudden existential outburst in my usual lazy put-everything-off-forever mindset,” she writes. When she purchased this 1100-square-foot home in Queens, it felt like the right fit. But boy it needed a face lift. She worked closely with White Arrow—Keren Richter and her husband Thomas Richter—to remodel this home.

The kitchen in Meredith and Jason’s Chelsea apartment, while much larger than your typical NYC apartment kitchen, still had its share of issues. Style-wise, it was stuck in the late ’90s, with heavy mahogany cabinets that sucked the light from the room. A wall of cabinets partially blocked the light from the room’s one window, while a slightly raised floor made for a tripping hazard.

This kitchen had so much going for it—high, wainscoted ceilings, gorgeous black countertops, tons of cabinet space—but it needed a little something. Does that something involve pineapples? Perhaps… This renovation by change & co is one of the few Before & After projects we’ve seen recently in which so many of the original elements have been retained. The countertops, faucet, and fridge are all the same, and the cabinetry and island were simply repainted.

When Puno Puno (yes, you read that right, her name is Puno Lauren Puno!) and Daniel Chin Yee moved into their Downtown Los Angeles loft earlier this year, they knew they’d found their dream home. First, because of all the added space (their previous apartment was a modest 600 square feet to this loft’s 1,500). And secondly, because of the huge amount of light pouring in from the wall-to wall, industrial-height windows that line their corner unit.

“Renovating the kitchen was my first major project in my first home,” admits Brandon Bourdganis, who purchased this 900-square-foot Michigan house three years ago. He loved the character of his new house and wanted to stay true to it while also incorporating his own modern and functional style. And though the kitchen the house came with was perfectly fine, Brandon wanted a kitchen he could be proud of. A space he would be happy to use every day.

The kitchen in this Brooklyn brownstone — before its reinvigorating renovation and revival — was dismal. Dark, dated. Grimy and greasy. Peeling paint, cracked walls and a floor you wouldn’t want to walk barefoot on. The whole home needed a lot of work, but the kitchen perhaps most so. After all, for many families the kitchen is the heart of the home. The hub of action. The hangout space of party guests.

For years, Jenna and her husband had been wanting to lighten and modernize the narrow kitchen in their Chelsea apartment. Finally, after living there for six years, the impending birth of their daughter gave them the hard deadline they needed to finally take the remodeling plunge. The old kitchen was full of dark, heavy finishes, which sucked all the light out of a very narrow space.

Diana Marsh spent 11 years living in Brooklyn before returning to her home state of Michigan. After purchasing this Ann Arbor house, she set to renovating it. It had “good bones” but was a bit on the small side and a lot on the dark side. As the owner of a brick and mortar store called Thistle and Bess, Diana’s has a keen eye for crafting creative spaces. Her year-long remodel of this house was no different!

When the lack of storage is a pain, the finishes are extraordinarily plain and you just really don’t love your small kitchen, what do you do? If you’re designer Mary Lee, you rip it all out and DIY yourself a functional, stylish modern mini kitchen. Mary’s tiny 366 square foot Seattle studio apartment — that she shares with her partner and a dog — had me drooling over all the ways she added style and function to such a small space.

Every square inch of this kitchen was ripped out and lovingly put back together — this time in a much more functional and stylish way — by the homeowners themselves. As designer Michelle Gage writes on her blog: “The floors were dirty and sticky. The appliances appeared to be original to the house. The counter tops were held together with tape.” It took two years to save enough money to finally tackle this outdated kitchen’s remodel.

Name: Ana and Patrick Kamin Type of Project: Kitchen Update Location: San Francisco, California When we moved to San Francisco and started looking for apartments, 85% of the kitchens we saw were not acceptable by my terms. On the one side, you have the ones that are newly updated, but the landlord chose the countertop and cabinets straight from the ’70s. Or you have the kitchens that are totally rundown — and the renovation will cost a fortune.

It was nearly love at first sight when artist Lindsay Hollinger found this house while on the search for a slower pace to live in Joshua Tree. Well, except for maybe the very vintage feeling kitchen. Thankfully, Lindsay knows that even the smallest changes can make the greatest impact. Rather than replace her original custom wooden cabinets (which were in good shape and sturdy), a sometimes expensive and unnecessary update, she opted to paint her way to a fresh kitchen.