Sarah Beeny’s love your home The TV presenter’s tips on improving your house
Property expert Sarah Beeny shares her quick wins to improve your kitchen
TOP OF THE TILES
It is possible to tile over existing tiles but they can end up looking rubbish if it’s not done really, really well. Step in Lite Stone (lite-stone.co.uk), which is real slate on a flexible backing sheet. It looks great and can be carefully fitted over the tiles you already have – the only tricky bit is the edges, but a line of coloured silicone can cover this. If you don’t already have tiles or can face hacking yours off, head to toppstiles. co.uk, which has a huge range of well-designed, good-value tiles.
COME CLEAN
There’s nothing as good as elbow grease to clean up your kitchen appliances – use baby oil on stainless steel then polish off, and Viakal or similar on limescale. To save time and effort, you could even book a professional to deep clean your oven (try ovenclean. com) and make it look like new – well worth the cost now and then. Painting is a great way to freshen up kitchen units. Before you start, wash them with sugar soap to remove dirt and grease, sand down and prime to ensure your top coat doesn’t fall off – I’d suggest the Zinsser BIN primer, which is pricey but worth it.
With so many designs to choose from, hardwearing vinyl is a practical choice in the kitchen
FLOOR SHOW
There’s no question that vinyl is the most affordable and practical of kitchen floorings and there are a wealth of designs to choose from. Tiled and stone floors are very unforgiving if you drop anything on them and aren’t as easy to clean. My favourite kitchen flooring is parquet – choose a darker colour for a durable finish that doesn’t look too orange.
WONDER WALLS
If you have a wall big enough, try rebelwalls. com murals – you can get them to fill your whole wall for a look that’s more work of art than wallpaper.
Don’t worry too much about using super-durable paint throughout the house, but always use vinyl in the kitchen, so you can wipe it down easily.
ADDED VALUE
If you are selling your house, a really nice kitchen will add thousands to its value because it’s such a key area for most buyers. Having said that, there is little point in spending a fortune sprucing up a kitchen that actually needs a proper overhaul. If this is the case, then I would advise you to freshen it up, make sure it’s spotlessly clean and leave it at that.
QUICK FIXES
Herbs will add life to your kitchen – in pots, on the window sill or in a ‘herb wall’ in containers fixed to the wall. Or buy some frames from Ikea (from £2 each), then print out and frame some of those snaps from your smartphone. Alternatively, if there’s a poem you’d like to memorise or something you’re trying to learn, laminate a copy and stick it on to your kitchen tiles with a putty adhesive. It’ll bring a bit of temporary interest and help your memory, too! If you have a kitchen table, a new table cloth is always a winner to freshen up the room.