Kitchen Remodel Ideas That Pay Off

Design Your Kitchen Around Inspired Colors

Color is the spice of kitchen life. Picking the perfect color not only makes for a lively, pleasant space, but it's one idea that can inexpensively return great value. For little more than the cost of paint and a few tools, you can majorly dial up the wow factor in your kitchen.

Keep it timeless and traditional with an all-white kitchen color scheme. Or take the opposite tack and go chic with a black kitchen. Feng shui-inspired kitchen colors keep things cool, relaxed, and neutral. No holds barred here: The color of your kitchen is dictated only by your imagination.

Upgrade Your Kitchen Cabinets

One word you never want to hear about your kitchen cabinets: dated. So, to attract maximum value in your kitchen remodel, put cabinets at the top of your list.

Updating your kitchen cabinets doesn't always have to mean tearing out and replacing your current cabinets, though in some real estate markets, a full replacement may be necessary. Updating your kitchen can be as simple and inexpensive as painting your cabinets. Or exercise your creative chops with fun, low-cost kitchen DIY projects like handcrafted wood cabinet pulls.

A step up, both in terms of cost and buyer appeal, is ​cabinet refacing. Refacing means replacing cabinets' most visually prominent area, the cabinet doors and drawer fronts. A cabinet refacing technician applies real wood veneer to the side of the cabinet boxes. The finishing touch that pulls the project together: new cabinet fixtures.

Add an Eye-Catching Backsplash

A kitchen backsplash is the ideal element to add or upgrade in terms of investment since the initial cost is low while the visual impact is high. The low price of adding a backsplash is owing to the fact that most backsplashes are do-it-yourself.

Shimmering glass or metal tiles are sure to attract attention, and most can be self-installed with only a little tiling know-how. Or keep the price even lower with easy-to-do, creative do-it-yourself backsplash hacks that can be completed in a day or two: wallpaper, tile decals, laminate flooring planks, or veneer stone.

Installing an eye-catching backsplash underscores the importance of the well-made kitchen as a selling device for the entire home. Kitchens are often the first major room that buyers see after they enter the house. Real estate agents tend to set up their bases of operation in the kitchen, as well, so buyers spend more time in that room than in other rooms.

Install Gorgeous Quartz Countertops

Among kitchen countertops, laminate, concrete, stainless steel, solid surface, and a number of others vie for best countertop status. But one countertop material always leads the pack: quartz countertops.

A hybrid of minerals and resins, quartz is a nearly perfect material for countertops. It looks like natural stone but is harder than natural stone. It is as impermeable as solid surface countertops but it won't scratch like solid surface.

This chameleon of surfaces can take on different personalities, too, adopting everything from a traditional stone-like appearance to the trendy and industrial look of concrete. Quartz countertops are expensive, so make sure your home's anticipated sale price can support this upgrade.

Install Great Kitchen Lighting

Kitchen lighting, often ignored, deserves the spotlight. Not only does a well-designed lighting package illuminate your beautiful kitchen, but the lighting itself can also become an object of attention. Unlike that other kitchen standby, recessed lighting, pendant lighting announces itself front and center.

Kitchen pendant lights have had their trend ups and downs, but they continue to be an effective light for areas such as islands and counters. Be sure to scale the size of the pendants to your kitchen, and avoid overwhelming the space.

Open a Kitchen Wall

Closed-up kitchens that you enter through a doorway are long a thing of the past. Kitchens today are more spacious and open to the rest of the house.

If your kitchen is boxed in with walls, consider removing a wall to incorporate the kitchen with living areas. Removing a non-load-bearing wall is messy but simple, and you won't compromise the structural integrity of the rest of the house.

Removing a load-bearing wall can be done by an experienced do-it-yourselfer. Usually, it's best to consult with a contractor about removing this type of wall.

Upgrade the Plumbing or Add Features

Kitchen plumbing gets a lot of use. Between the dishwasher, sink, fridge ice maker, and possibly a prep sink, kitchens use a lot of water.

It's usually worth the time and expense to upgrade the plumbing if it is severely outdated or faulty. Property inspectors will take note of leaks under dishwashers or pinhole leaks in copper plumbing.

So many kitchen plumbing projects you can do on your own: move the kitchen sink, replace the dishwasher, or replace the garbage disposal. You can even replace that corroded copper pipe with fresh, easy-to-use PEX (plastic) pipes and push-fit connectors.