Changing a dingy kitchen into a sparkling, showroom-quality food prep and dining area doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. You don’t even need to go as far as buying new appliances or changing the layout of your kitchen. It might be as simple as updating your paint and lighting.

The kitchen probably gets the most use in your household as a gathering location where your family prepares food, does homework and plays games. This can leave the walls looking a little gray. Smoke particles, hand prints and even splashes from all the sauces boiling on the stove can make the paint color or wall paper look old.

Take the opportunity to refresh your walls with a new color. You can go bright and cheery, or bold and modern – just to wake up the room. Because most kitchens don’t have a lot of wall space due to cabinets and appliances, you can even use two colors – try a bolder color around the dining area, with a more muted tone in the rest of the kitchen – just to make the room pop. Paint is one of the cheapest ways to refresh a room, so make sure you include it in your budget.

As you’re painting the walls, take a good look at your cabinets. Maybe they could use a fresh coat of stain, or a new paint color as well. Sometimes cabinets just need a good cleaning to get the oil and other sticky residue off of the handles and doors. No matter what you do, the refreshed cabinets will definitely bring more sparkle to your kitchen.

Kitchen lighting has improved tremendously over the years. Pendants for tables, high ceiling areas or islands are a great way to bring the light down and focused on the area where you’re working or eating. You can add additional illumination to the workspace on your countertops by installing under-cabinet lighting. And flush mount lights of all shapes and styles are great for over the table, or in the middle of the space to spread light to every corner of the room.

Bringing additional cheery light into your kitchen is easy with discount lighting at Lighting Showplace, which has a large selection of brand name light fixtures in stock and ready to ship. In addition, knowledgeable staff is available to help you as a do-it-yourself homeowner to bring your kitchen from dingy to stylish.

It doesn’t take a lot of money to refresh your kitchen, just give it a bit more modern lighting and remove the gloom. As a do-it-yourself homeowner, you won’t have any difficulty updating your lights, painting the walls and potentially giving your cabinets a fresh look for your kitchen makeover.