Renovation Diaries

Before & After: A Beige Kitchen Goes from Boring to Bright in Just 3 Months

published Jul 23, 2022
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Anika Gandhi's kitchen before & after renovation.
Credit: Before: Anika Gandhi; After: Petra Ford; Design: Kitchn

A sea of brown. That’s what Anika Gandhi remembers seeing when she first laid eyes on her Cypress, California, home back in 2018. “It was not my colors at all,” Anika says of the brown cabinets and dark counters with, yes, orange sparkles. “It was definitely something I would have wanted to change, but it wasn’t until we actually started living in the house that we realized how badly it was laid out,” she says.

The original kitchen was seriously lacking counter space and the fridge was buried in an awkward corner so the family couldn’t even fully open its door. Plus, the dishwasher door hit right near the stovetop — so, without a doubt, the kitchen was kind of a mess. 

Credit: Anika Gandhi

About a year-and-a-half into living in the home, Anika and her husband, Darshan, decided they were going to redo the kitchen, but the biggest problem was figuring out a layout that made sense. Sure, they’d gladly swap the drab cabinets for something brighter, but they were stumped on how to make the space work for them (and their major appliances).

The other problem was that the kitchen had an oddly placed second window that seemed to cut the space in half and prevent them from building enough wall storage and wraparound counter space. 

Credit: Anika Gandhi

How They Did It

For a little bit of perspective, the couple turned to professional contractors and kitchen designers to figure out which layout would make the most sense. They weren’t necessarily planning on hiring one, but they decided to get five to seven quotes anyway. “Each contractor came with their own ideas,” she says. “And the quotes helped us figure out what things would and should cost.”

Credit: Petra Ford
Renovator: Anika and Darshan Gandhi Location: Cypress, CA

One of the bigger price surprises was the hefty cost of the cabinets. Getting all new cabinets was coming in at about $35,000, which was an issue for the couple because they only budgeted to spend $15,000 to $20,000. The two were also bummed to find out how much extra it would cost to move the water and electric lines. 

Credit: Petra Ford

They were, however, excited to hear from experts that it would be fine to close off that misplaced window. “I was skeptical about closing up a window because the kitchen was pretty dark. But once we closed it, we were able to extend the kitchen counters out and have all of those options,” she says.

Credit: Petra Ford

So, the couple put a plan in place and created a mood board featuring their must-haves, like bright, dual-color cabinets (green on the bottom, white on top) and white quartz countertops. The goal was to do the vast majority of the work themselves and to keep the kitchen functional for as much of the time as possible.

They ended up completing the renovation in stages so that the kitchen was only out of commission for a few days out of the three-month process. “There were a few days we would work from morning until evening, but at night we could still use it,” says Anika, who also happens to run her own home improvement blog titled Anika’s DIY Life.

Credit: Petra Ford

Anika is an avid DIYer and has a PhD in electrical engineering, but she had never done a renovation quite as extensive as this before. To prepare, she researched before installing floors, tiles, and cabinets for the first time. “Everything was a learning process,” she says of the 170-square-foot transformation. They hired contractors for the first part of the project to remove the soffits (a boxy ceiling molding) and fill in that pesky window.

Credit: Petra Ford

Anika and Darshan’s Renovation in 13 Simple Steps

  • Step 1: Call in the experts and figure out what the new layout should look like. 
  • Step 2: Bring in contractors to fill in the oddly placed window and demolition the soffits.
  • Step 3: Remove a few of the top cabinets to make way for open shelving.
  • Step 4: Paint the walls and ceiling a bright white. 
  • Step 5: Install additional base cabinets. 
  • Step 6: Switch out the old vinyl flooring. 
  • Step 7: Bring in the new countertops. 
  • Step 8: Add wood slat trim to the standalone kitchen peninsula. 
  • Step 9: Install the upper cabinets.
  • Step 10: Work on the stunning backsplash.
  • Step 11: Reface the doors of the remaining old cabinets.
  • Step 12: Paint all of the cabinets. 
  • Step 13: Build and affix floating shelves. 

Once the contractors were gone, the rest of the demolition was up to Anika and Darshan. She took down some of the upper cabinets, which had previously closed the room off and made it seem darker. She then ripped out the vinyl plank flooring to make way for the new base cabinets. Anika chose unfinished beech from The Home Depot, which were pretty easy to install and came pre-assembled. She ripped out the rest of the dark vinyl flooring to make way for higher-quality dusk cherry vinyl planks.

Credit: Petra Ford

Once she got the hang of it, the floor installation was actually much easier than she had anticipated. It took her and her husband two full days, but they were able to cover 500 square feet, including lots of tricky corners and the adjacent staircase. Would she do it again, though? Probably not. “The flooring was fun to install, but it was a lot for the effort involved,” she says. “I would just hire that out.” 

Credit: Petra Ford

Anika was thrilled to finally get rid of the orange-tinged countertops and replace them with a lightly veined quartz. The Home Depot did the installation, which saved them time and money. But the kitchen peninsula is where Anika really got to flex her DIY muscles. Rolling up her sleeves, she used a miter saw to cut up 1 1/2-inch-thick slats of pre-primed boards and attached them to her kitchen island with 1 1/4-inch brad nails.

She then spaced each one 3/4 of an inch apart to get a cool ridged look. After priming and painting it Sherwin-Williams’ Rock Garden green, she ended up with a custom island that adds beautiful texture to the space.

Credit: Petra Ford

Once all of these surfaces were set, she was able to work on installing the upper cabinets on the left-hand wall. Admittedly, this was a big learning curve and the couple ended up installing them crooked at first, so they had to be removed and redone. “Everything has a few hiccups — as always,” says Anika, who has impressively built 90 percent of her home’s own furniture.

Credit: Petra Ford

Next up, the backsplash! When Anika spotted the dazzling gold and marble backsplash tile from The Home Depot, she knew it was the one. She used an adhesive tile mat and mortar to affix it to the wall. The couple went with Musselbound as the tile mat, which made the whole process go much faster. In fact, the backsplash is still Anika’s favorite part of the whole room. “I love the way the reflection changes as I walk,” she says of the pretty herringbone pattern.

Credit: Petra Ford

Because Anika used a mixture of new and old cabinets, she needed to reface the cabinet fronts to make them look uniform. It was the perfect way to get fresh-looking cabinets without having to shell out lots of money for new ones. She thought about building the fronts herself, but it would have taken a while to build all 33 drawer and cabinet fronts she needed, so she went with pre-made ones from Nieu Cabinet Doors. After the new fronts were installed, she primed, painted, and embellished with champagne bronze hardware to make the look feel luxe.  

Credit: Petra Ford

The couple worked on the kitchen on and off for three months. If they were to work straight through that time, it probably would have taken them just a few weeks. This might seem like a lot of work (it is, let’s be real!) but Anika is a self-taught woodworker and believes anyone can makeover a kitchen, even with a low budget. All said and done, the renovation came in at just under $10,000. “It’s not as hard as it might seem, just take it one step at a time and take on a small project,” she says.

Credit: Petra Ford

Thanks for sharing, Anika and Darshan!

For more kitchen makeover stories like this one, check out: