When my now-husband and I bought our 1970s three bedroom home, it had been a rental for years. We named it The Crap Shack. Unsurprisingly, the rooms were daggy and dated, and one of these was the kitchen. It was neat and clean, but that was its best feature – it was dark and depressing, with varnished timber benchtops that had gone orange over the years, hideous floral curtains, worn brass hardware, a wall of dated red-brown face brick and brown 1970s splashback tiles with little pictures of dining scenes.

As we were first home buyers and on a renovating budget, we didn’t have much to spend on the kitchen. So we gave it a shoestring budget mini-makeover. Our changes cost us just under $300. First we covered up the dark, dated face brick wall which made a lot of difference – it considerably brightened up the room. We covered it ourselves using inexpensive Render It from Cement Australia. For an easier DIY option, I would look at Dulux Texture Full Cover Roll On.

We replaced the curtains with white blinds ordered online. To give a feature to the blank wall, I bought a shelf from IKEA. I removed the old varnish from the benchtops, sanded them back and gave them two coats of Feast Watson Floorclear. I changed out the chunky old brass knobs for small crystal ones.

The existing cabinets were dark jarrah cupboards. I have to admit at first I thought we would replace them because they made the room seem darker. But then we found out that the old man who used to own our house had built the cabinets himself out of recycled jarrah floorboards – he was upcycling well before it became a buzz word! It made them special. Once we lightened everything else up in the space and I gave the cupboards a couple coats of jarrah oil, they actually looked really lovely. We love the cupboards now.

I also painted over the dated brown 1970s splashback tile - a good budget fix if you don’t want, or don’t have the cash to replace wall tile, a process which gets messy and dusty. It costs less than $100 and is one of the easiest ways to give a dated tiled splashback a visual boost. I used White Knight Tile Paint and their special primer – make sure you use a specially formulated tile paint and primer. The difference painting the splashback tiles made to the room has been astounding. The whole kitchen feels lighter, brighter, bigger and less dated. As tile paint is glossy, now the tiles also bounce the natural light around, making the kitchen feel like it is lighter.