Easy Kitchen Upgrades On A Budget

Our Home Search Story

Hart and I bought our first home in December 2020. Going into the search for our home, we knew we needed a new or recently renovated home. We are not exactly DIY people and honestly, we usually just end up arguing when we try to do them.  Unfortunately for us, Chicago is full of homes that look like they haven’t been renovated since the 1970s. I kid you not. Contrary to what you see on Instagram, Chicago homes are decades behind. It seemed like whenever we did find a home that was recently renovated, there were always major red flags. For example, we once toured this beautiful duplex condo with the kitchen of my dreams and a finished basement. However, when we went down the stairs to the basement, we could almost touch the ceiling! For context, I am only 5’2 – on a good day.

It felt like we hit dead end after dead end until we finally found our home in October 2020. It was perfect – a new build, updated and I immediately fell in love. I’m pretty sure Hart had to drag me out after our showing ended.

Making a House a Home

While I love our home, I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make a few minor updates. I love gold and matte black, but our home was a simple contractor’s build with silver fixtures. I wanted to update the kitchen and the bathrooms with gold and matte black features; but decided to start with just the kitchen. I realized we needed to change the showerheads, the faucets, the hardware on the glass doors, AND the doorknobs in the bathroom. The kitchen was a lot more manageable and less daunting. I just wanted to swap out the cabinet pulls, the kitchen faucet the light pendants hanging over the island. So that’s where I started.

The light Pendants

I knew I wanted LA-style boho vibe in the kitchen with basket-like light pendants; so, I started looking for the perfect ones as soon as we moved in. I loved the rattan basket style pendants. This was a hard piece to find because Hart wasn’t sold on the style. However, we finally found one we both loved at Wayfair. Another more affordable option are these from IKEA or these from Cost Plus World Market. I would have gotten one of these if Hart liked them as well.

The next step was removing our old light pendants and hooking the new pendants up. To be honest, this step was a little intimidating. We talked to both of our dads for step-by-step instructions along with using YouTube tutorials and the paper instructions that came in the box. The job took us about ~4 hours, but as newbies, we spent a decent amount of time figuring out how to put the pendant together. I’d give it a 6 out of 10 for difficulty; but, setting it up felt empowering and it was much more affordable than calling an electrician. Plus, it looks amazing in our kitchen, and it feels even more amazing knowing we set it up ourselves.

UNSOLICITED TIP: If you plan on setting up your own light pendants, turn the lights on first and then switch the power breaker off so you can ensure the electricity to the lights is turned off.

The Kitchen Faucet

As I mentioned, I love matte black, but particularly, I love matte black faucets. I knew from day one that I wanted to change the faucet in our kitchen to be matte black and I am so glad I did. It looks amazing. I ordered the faucet from Wayfair as well. I didn’t have a particular “vibe” I was looking for other than wanting a matte black color, so I decided to keep it simple. The updated faucet is like our original faucet, but with a new color.

Setting up the faucet seemed like an easy enough task, so we opted to set this up ourselves. Putting the faucet together took us about 2 – 3 hours, but again, most of our time was spent just figuring out what to do since we hadn’t done that before. We had issues figuring out how to take our original faucet apart; but, once we figured that part out, it was mostly smooth sailing.  As you can see, Nala and I did most of the heavy lifting!

The Cabinet Pulls

I have loved gold my entire life so it’s no surprise that I’d want gold cabinet pulls. We wanted the European-style pulls because it looks nicer with our 3 inch holes. This is the same shape of our current pulls, so it was another swap for color. I ordered the first set from Wayfair with the other upgrades. They were of great quality, but not quite the color we were looking for. It’s champagne gold and just barely a different color compared to our original silver pulls.  We went to Home Depot to see if we could find what we were looking for, but again, only found the champagne gold pulls.

I was starting to think gold pulls weren’t in our future. I decided to check on Amazon before giving up. The second set of knobs I ordered was the “Amazon Pick” on Amazon. They were significantly lighter than the Wayfair pulls, and they were more brass than gold. They felt and looked extremely cheap. I decided to give Amazon one more try and found the perfect set of cabinet pulls. These are more gold than champagne gold but less gold than the brass pulls. These cabinet pulls were affordable and matched the quality to the original Wayfair pulls we ordered. I’d recommend either for your cabinets depending on the color you’re going for.

We finished the kitchen with one last touch – a beautiful jute rug runner from Target. Finding the perfect upgrades for our kitchen took some time; but I’m so glad I searched around to find reasonably priced options without substituting the quality of the item. . Our kitchen finally feels like ours and we both feel empowered about doing it ourselves.

You can view a video of our upgrades on my Instagram here. If you want to read more articles about our home, check out my Home Page. I’ll post updates there. Have you been doing your own home improvements? I’d love to hear your favorite tips and tricks in the comments below!