Top five DIY kitchen improvements in 2024

Update your kitchen with DIY kitchens from DIY Homefit

If you are planning to improve your home, you’re not alone. A survey by Gocompare found that 33% of us planned on renovating our homes in 2024. This percentage is higher if you have either been in your home for less than two years or more than five. And people aged 25 to 39 are the group most likely to get on with those renovations.

But when looking to improve your home, where is the best place to start? The Gocompare survey found that the top improvement being planned was redecorating, with 47.5% of respondents planning to do this in 2024. 

But next on the list was kitchens. 23.7% of respondents wanted to improve their kitchen this year. So in this article we take a look at five things that you can do to improve your kitchen. 

We will focus on things that you are able to achieve easily yourself. The Gocompare survey found that when people are doing home improvements:

• 33.6% of respondents would hire a professional for the whole job;
• 24.7% intend to do all the renovations themselves;
• 39% plan a mix of both professional and DIY, doing some of the work themselves – perhaps with the help of friends and family – and just hiring a professional for the more specialised tasks.

So here are five DIY kitchen improvements : things that you can do to improve your kitchen, with minimal help from professionals.

Install a feature appliance

If you need a new kitchen appliance as part of your kitchen update, it’s a good idea to start with this first. Depending what it is, you may need some professional help with the installation. You may also want to make your appliance a design feature of your new kitchen, which will then influence what else you change.

For example, if you need to replace your fridge freezer, one option would be to have a freestanding fridge freezer in a statement colour such as pink, green or red. Once you have decided on this, you can plan the rest of the kitchen decor around your new fridge freezer.

Conversely, you may want a more streamlined kitchen look, in which case you could explore the option of purchasing integrated appliances concealed behind kitchen cabinet doors. 

So plan what you want to do regarding new kitchen appliances first, then everything else can centre around that.

Change the colour of your walls

One of the easiest ways to start with DIY kitchens is to change the colour of your walls, either with new paint or by using wallpaper. Changing the colour of your kitchen can make it look like a completely different room altogether, particularly if you go from a dark to light colour, or vice versa.

Choose one or more colours that you like and that you will enjoy having around, which could either match or completely contrast your kitchen cabinets. Another option would be to use two contrasting colours on different walls, or perhaps add wallpaper either to a couple of walls or on one feature wall.

The choice is yours, but changing the colour of your kitchen walls will make a huge difference to the look and feel of your room.

Replace your kitchen cabinets

If your kitchen cabinets have seen better days, it may be time to replace them. Updating your kitchen cabinets can be a relatively easy task for DIY kitchens, particularly if you are simply replacing old cabinets with new ones in the same size.

DIY Homefit supplies several ranges of kitchen cabinets, with a wide variety of finishes, styles and colours. Our kitchen cabinets can be made to measure for the perfect fit, and can also be configured with the interior of your choice – for example shelves, drawers, carousels etc. Take a look at our Made to Measure Kitchen Cabinets page to find out more.

But before you start the process of replacing all your kitchen cabinets, it is worth checking the carcasses of your cabinets to see what condition they are in. If your cabinets are still in good condition inside, but look dated on the outside, a more cost effective option would be to simply change the doors. With replacement kitchen doors, your kitchen cabinets could look as good as new and give you several years more life.

At DIY Homefit we supply several ranges of replacement kitchen doors including Bella Vinyl Wrapped, Flat Slab and Budget kitchen doors. All are available in a wide variety of colours and finishes, and will bring your kitchen cabinets back to life. Take a look at the ranges in more detail on our Kitchen Doors and Drawer Fronts page.

Update your kitchen worktops

Another cost effective way to update your kitchen is to change the kitchen worktops. This can be straightforward to do as part of your DIY kitchen improvements. If you are simply changing your old worktops for new ones the same size, it should only take a day or two to remove your old worktops from the tops of your kitchen cabinets and fix the new ones on instead. 

Our recent article How do replacement kitchen worktops actually work? explains in more detail how to do this, and also provides some tips on the best kind of kitchen worktops to choose. You can also read more about the Prima and Axiom ranges of worktops that DIY Homefit supply on our Kitchen Worktops Splashbacks and Upstands page here.

Change handles and knobs on kitchen cabinets and drawers

One very quick and easy DIY kitchen improvement to make is changing the handles and knobs on your kitchen cabinets and drawers. There are many different styles to choose from, such as bar handles, bow handles, cup handles and knobs. Most are available in a range of finishes including metals, wood effect or porcelain, and can either be a plain simple design or embellished with ornate detailing.

To find out more about DIY Homefit’s range of kitchen handles and knobs, take a look at our Handles page here.

We hope that this article provides some helpful ideas about getting started with your DIY kitchen improvements. 

For further ideas and inspiration, why not take a browse through DIY Homefit’s gallery of kitchen pictures to see just how good a DIY Homefit kitchen can look.

And remember to visit us again soon here at DIY Homefit for more home and lifestyle tips.