Three ways to extend your kitchen's life by 5 years

Quite often in our design consultations the kitchen is the central topic.

However not everyone can afford a swanky brand-new kitchen when there are other priorities around the home that needs investment spending first.

So we are happy to take a Band -Aid approach: freshen up the space without taking too much budget away from other areas. A lot can be achieved when you have clear expectations on the desired outcome and a realistic interim budget to match.

The most common refresh is getting existing cabinets sprayed or repainted.

This is a great approach if the hardware, such as drawer runners and door hinges, and cabinet edges are in good nick, but the colour and finishes make the whole space look outdated. If the the surrounding walls have recently been repainted then that can make old-fashioned cabinet colours really look worse.

A cabinet re-finish is a particularly good option if your kitchen has a good quality bench top such as granite that you are happy to live with for another five years.

Fashionable cabinet colours, new handles and a stone bench top create a fresh kitchen without a full demolition and rebuild. Photo / Supplied

There are a good companies that provide a respray service. It is a mostly hassle-free process as the refinishers generally take away as much of the kitchen as they can, leaving just a small amount of onsite spraying.

To complete the look, update door and drawer handles. Be careful to pick ones the same size as the old ones, otherwise filling and patching the cabinets for new handles can be more costly.

The second refresh hack is to replace the humble kitchen tap.

This is a simple and cost-effective fix that can transform your kitchen in an instant, and is a great way to get your kitchen up to current trend or to match other hardware in your home.

There are tons of great styles to choose, from a large goose neck to something sleek and minimalist. For $500 you can say goodbye to that wobbly old faucet and hello to a fancy retractable tap.

Custom spraying services can give your dated cabinets a modern look. Photo / Supplied

Lastly, update your benches.

Sometimes, the cabinets are looking good and runners and hardware are working well, but the old laminate benchtop just isn’t up to standard and needs replacing.

It is a tactile feature. When you are selling your home, I can guarantee the bench top is the thing most people will touch, so it has to make an impression.

To get a bench top templated and upgraded it to a nice imported stone or engineered stone will cost around $5000 (depending on the size of your kitchen).

Take the opportunity to upgrade the sink either as undercounter or over mounted on the bench.

Once these updated are all fitted, get a few tools and tighten all the cabinets and drawers to make them feel sturdy and visually fix levelling issues.

There are lots more small things that can be done, from upgrading the splash back to updating the powerpoints and light fittings, depending on how far you want to keep on going.

The nicer the makeover, the longer you can stretch out a few more years until you are ready to commit to a full kitchen replacement.

- Laura Heynike is director of Pocketspace Interiors