Inspiration for Our Ikea Kitchen Refresh
As a big fan of HGTV and Pinterest, I’ve long been inspired by the beautiful green backsplashes I kept seeing. I’ve been eager to incorporate one into our kitchen for a while. I also love the sleek look of black kitchen cabinets, but I felt that they were too dark for our small space. While I appreciate the brightness of white cabinets, I didn’t want the entire kitchen to be all white. So, combining the two—black lower cabinets and white upper cabinets—felt like the perfect solution. It gave the kitchen a stylish, two-toned look that still felt light and inviting. Since our kitchen is the first thing you see when you walk through the front door, I wanted to create a space that felt custom and thoughtfully designed.
The Problem With Our Old Kitchen
While the kitchen wasn’t terrible, it definitely lacked character. Our house had been renovated by a house flipper before we bought it, and the space felt a bit uninspired—almost stuck in a 2010s grey monotony. One of the things I couldn’t stand was the black glass-front doors on some of the upper cabinets—they gave off major mid-90s coffee table vibes, which wasn’t the look I was going for. Plus, there were three closed-off, hollow spaces in the cabinetry that could have been better utilized for storage or turned into a design feature. It just felt like there was so much potential that wasn’t being tapped into.
Challenges & Considerations
The biggest challenge we faced was removing the old backsplash and then repairing the plaster walls to ensure they were level enough for the new one. One of my main concerns was how the green backsplash would pair with our navy blue dining room banquette. I was a bit unsure at first, but then I remembered how well the green plant near our navy curtains works together in the dining room. If those can complement each other, why not the tiles and the banquette?
Materials For Our Budget Ikea Kitchen Makeover
- Putty to fix the wall after removing the old tiles
- White fusion mineral paint for the outside of the cabinets by the window
- Black fusion mineral paint to paint the lower cabinets, they were already black but over the years our toddler has done a crazy amount of damage to them
- 7 new white door fronts from Ikea to replace the black uppers
- 2 Ikea Vadholma open storage shelves in brown/stained ash
- A white panel for the outside of the cupboard
- A large white panel from Ikea for beside the fridge
- Warm gold cabinet pulls from amazon
- drill
- Hinges for the upper cabinet above the fridge
- Green backsplash tiles from Wayfair
- Tile spacers
- Tile saw
- Tile mastic
- Grout
- Caulk
The Process
Step.1 Measure and order new door fronts from Ikea. These are very reasonably priced
Step.2 Replace the old door fronts and panels with the new ones
Step.3 Remove the old backsplash and repair the wall
Step.4 Paint the underside of the cabinets white and paint any outer cabinets that you can't put a new white panel on
Step.5 Paint lower cabinets black
Step.6 Remove old cabinet pulls and replace with new ones
Step.7 Install the new backsplash
Step.8 Apply grout
Step.9 Do any final paint touch ups and styling
The Final Reveal...
I’m so thrilled to finally have the green backsplash I’ve been admiring in other kitchens over the past few years! Swapping out the black upper cabinets for white has instantly brightened up the space. I also love the added storage above the fridge, and overall, the kitchen feels more modern, stylish, and functional.
Design Tips, Lessons Learned & What It Cost
We decided to tackle this kitchen makeover after committing to hosting Christmas dinner at our place. The biggest lesson I learned was to give yourself plenty of time—and maybe avoid setting a firm deadline just a few weeks out. Some of our tiles arrived broken, which delayed the project, but luckily Wayfair quickly replaced them, and we were able to finish the backsplash just two days before our dinner.
Cost: The total cost to makeover our Ikea kitchen was about $1600. We spent about $500 at Ikea on the new door fronts, panels and open storage, $100 on paint, $45 on the new pulls, $700 on tiles, $100 on the tile saw, $50 for grout and $60 for tile mastic.
