Budget-Friendly DIY Kitchen Cabinet Ideas

Updating kitchen cabinets can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to break the budget! Instead of a complete overhaul, try one of these budget-friendly DIY kitchen cabinet ideas instead!

Are you all ready to talk about some kitchen cabinet ideas? If you have spent any amount of time on my blog, you know I love a good kitchen makeover!

I truly believe the kitchen is the heart of the home, so it’s only fair that I get to make it the place we all actually want to hang out in. However, kitchen remodels are not cheap … at all. If you are anything like me, there is always a fine line that has to be walked between style and budget.

Thankfully, you really CAN have it all in this case! Creating the kitchen of your dreams while staying on budget can absolutely be done. The kitchen cabinets tend to be one of the most expensive thing to replace (outside of appliances), so I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite DIY kitchen cabinet ideas.

How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets

My personal favorite way to update cabinets is to paint them. If you think learning how to paint kitchen cabinets sounds impossible, I promise it isn’t! I know, since I painted my kitchen cabinets myself.

I might be biased, but don’t they look gorgeous? I painted them using Benjamin Moore’s Simply White, which was a huge improvement over the dated wood look they used to have.

How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets Without Sanding

One of the reasons people always feel hesitant about figuring out how to paint kitchen cabinets is the prep work can seem overwhelming. Who has time and energy to sand every crevice of each cabinet? Just think of all the time—and dust! With my method of painting cabinets, you don’t have to worry about that. I didn’t do any sanding. Instead, I used a deglosser…and a few years later my white cabinets still look amazing! Check out the post I wrote about it here >> How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets.

DIY Kitchen Cabinet Ideas

If painting still sounds overwhelming, or if it just isn’t your thing, that’s okay. Thanks to some creative bloggers and designers, there are a lot of fun ways homeowners can redo their cabinets outside of using a can of paint. Here are some of my favorite kitchen cabinet ideas that don’t require paint.

Add DIY Open Shelving for Cabinets

As you may have seen, open shelving in the kitchen is one of the most popular kitchen cabinet ideas lately. They can be extremely budget-friendly and make a great DIY project. I love that you can create virtually any look with these shelves depending on the stain or paint, brackets and what you put on the shelves to decorate with. There’s no denying shelves instead of cabinets are super trendy. However, you can add open shelving to your kitchen in two ways.

First, you can do what some of these incredibly talented bloggers have done and remove upper cabinets. As you can see, this can be an absolutely stunning replacement kitchen cabinet idea.

This kitchen shared by CoCoKelley is the perfect example. It is part decor, part functional. It makes the entire kitchen look so open and airy.

The second way you can add open shelving to your kitchen is to do what I did—simply add shelving to a wall as an accent, rather than a replacement for cabinets. In my opinion, this is the best of both worlds—all the style and fun of shelving plus all the perks of cabinetry. Beautiful, right?

Replace the Cabinet Face

If you have cabinets that are in good condition, you can simply update the door style and make them look totally new. This is super easy if you have kitchen cabinets from Ikea or somewhere that is designed to do this, but if you are working with anything else, you will have to do a little woodworking or order custom doors. I love what Refresh Living did with her cabinets in the image below. She ordered custom shaker-style cabinet doors and used them to update her old cabinetry for a fraction of the cost.

Add New Hardware

This is the easiest idea on this list. In my opinion, adding new hardware to an older cabinet really does make a big impact! If you are looking for a kitchen cabinet makeover idea that can be done in an afternoon, this is the one. Plus, it gives you a good excuse to head to my favorite place to buy pulls—Hobby Lobby! Side note – you can check out my other favorite things to shop for at Hobby Lobby in this post.

This post from Dimples and Tangles shows how changing your cabinet pulls is one of the easiest kitchen cabinet ideas and just how big of a difference it can make. And yes, she got her hardware from Hobby Lobby, of course.

I changed out my kitchen cabinet hardware when I painted my kitchen cabinets as well. I give tips on installing and measuring for new cabinet hardware for my kitchen doors and drawers in this post >> How to Measure and Install New Cabinet Pulls {the easy way!}.

Remove the Cabinet Doors

If you don’t want to pull down your cabinets, patch and paint the walls, then install open shelving, but you still want the look of it, here’s your solution. Simply remove the cabinet doors! This is another easy kitchen cabinet idea that can transform the look of your space. This kitchen was featured on Design Sponge and shows just how big of an impact this kitchen cabinet idea can be. Isn’t it gorgeous?

Add a Glass Front to your Cabinet Doors

If you are looking for a happy medium between the closed storage of cabinets and a way to display your favorite dishes and kitchen pieces, this is one of my favorite kitchen cabinet ideas. You can have this done professionally, but it can also be a DIY, surprisingly! This blog post from Confessions of a Serial DIYer makes this cabinet DIY project look totally doable.

Which one of these ideas are your favorites? I’m still a bit partial to the cabinet painting method, but I really do like this all!

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