BE CREATIVE IN THE KITCHEN

Most side or rear extensions involve a new kitchen, which can run into many thousands. One way to cut your budget is to buy a used or ex-display kitchen, which you can then have reconfigured and repainted to suit your space.

Claire Carr (below) bought this second-hand Brayer Design kitchen from Used Kitchen Exchange (uke.co.uk) and paid around £4,000 for it, including the range cooker (when it was installed in 2012 it cost £44,600).

‘I wanted a luxury, well-made kitchen, but on a budget,’ she says. ‘I’m a huge fan of recycling, so for me, the fact that buying a used kitchen is eco-friendly as well makes it even better.’

Her tip is to look for kitchens that are bigger than you need, so that you have flexibility with the layout. ‘Our kitchen is a completely different shape from the room it was in originally,’ she says. ‘We knew we wouldn’t be able to reuse the worktops as we needed to reconfigure the cabinetry. By adding new worktops and spraying the kitchen units, as well as changing the hardware from chrome to brass, it’s given a nineyear-old kitchen a complete new lease of life. The quality is second to none and it looks as though it was made for our home.’

A second-hand kitchen gets a new lease of life with a coat of paint and new handles