Has your kitchen lost its identity?

It's not uncommon for people to replace or renew aspects of their home on an 'as and when' basis and this is especially true in the Kitchen. The old lino may have been replaced with a new laminate flooring and those stained and scratched worktops may have been replaced too. Doing everything at once can be costly, especially in today's economic climate, so replacing the old with new bit by bit is often the only option.

This is a purse friendly option but it's easy to loose direction. Does the new floor work with the new worktops? Do the splash back tiles compliment or conflict with other design aspects of your kitchen? If not, what can you do to tie everything back together without spending a fortune?  If you've not done so already, you could consider replacing your current cupboard doors and drawer fronts with new kitchen doors.

If you're stuck for ideas, have a look for kitchen doors online. Using an image search engine will speed up the process considerably as a picture speaks a thousand words (tip: select the 'large' option to filter out the tiny thumbnail images). Pay particular attention to examples of kitchens which have similar flooring and worktops to your own kitchen and get an idea of how different styles of replacement kitchen doors and drawer fronts could look in your own kitchen.

If you have a dark kitchen floor and black marble worktops, you may feel that choosing replacement kitchen doors of a similar tone will work, however in the evenings with ambient lighting, your kitchen may resemble a cavern rather than the culinary centre of your home. Contrasting colours work best by dividing the floor, units and worktops into distinct areas.

You can also consider 'pulling out' some of the less prominent colours which are already present in your kitchen. For example, in my mother's kitchen is white wall paper with very fine pinstripes in green. These were barely noticeable until new kitchen doors were fitted in a similar shade of green. They gave the wall paper a new lease of life and with it, the entire kitchen. Had they chosen replacement kitchen doors without considering the wallpaper, they'd have probably repapered before long too, costing more money. 

If your kitchen has lost it's identity, take a step back and have a think about what can be done to tie it all together into a single coherent style. You don't always have to build an entire new kitchen and changing something as simple as the cupboard doors may be an easy and cost effective solution to a common dilemma.