A kitchen makeover usually starts with a small idea that your cupboards are looking a bit tired or you’re fed up with not having enough space, and then before you know it, you’re diving deep into new design ideas and colour and wondering how you could improve the layout. That’s the exciting part, of course, but when you realise how much you have to do and how many choices you have to make, it can get stressful. With that in mind, here are some suggestions to make it much less stressful and a little more fun. 

Don’t Start With Pinterest

It’s tempting to begin with colours and finishes because that’s the fun part, but if you start there, you can end up trying to make your home fit an image rather than making sure it fits your life. So before anything else, it’s best to stand in your current kitchen and think about what annoys you. 

Is it storage? Layout? Lighting? Clutter? Once you know, you can make sure you design a new kitchen that does away with those problems and actually works for what you need it for, and that makes a lot of sense. 

Make Fewer Decisions At A Time 

Stress often comes in when you’re making lots of decisions all at once – you’re basically overwhelming yourself. But there’s really no reason to do that because you can make decisions one at a time, working through a list if you find that easier, and only focusing on one step before moving to the next. Of course, you’ll want everything to look good together, but that doesn’t mean everything has to be chosen together. 

It’s best not to rush big decisions like a kitchen makeover, and taking things in stages means you’re less likely to panic buy something because you’re getting bored of choosing things. Since kitchen decisions are ones you’ve literally got to live with for years, it’s worth getting them right. 

Be Realistic About Budget

Money is another area where it can get stressful, especially because costs can go up slowly, and you might not realise just how much you’re spending until you add it all up. 

The best thing to do is set a clear and relatively strict budget early on, and once you know the numbers, you’ll also need to be honest about priorities. If better storage is more important than statement lighting, for example, that’s where your money will need to go, and so on. And always give yourself a little bit of a buffer, just to be on the safe side. 

Accept That it Will Be Disrupted 

Even the smoothest renovation is going to include dust, temporary inconvenience, and moments where you can’t find the thing you’re looking for, and that’s annoying, but pretending none of that’s going to happen actually makes it worse when it actually does, so it’s not the right path to take. 

If you plan a temporary basic setup, keep essentials in one easily accessible place, and accept that it’s not a disaster and it’s going to be over and done with soon enough, it’s all going to feel a lot less stressful.