How to build a bespoke kitchen on a small budget.

When we bought our first house we bought on a shoestring budget and we bought a complete do-er up-er hoping that with the skills of my partner and his dad we would be able to build what we wanted but at a fraction of the cost.

Apart from a plumber, a plasterer and an electrician all the work has been completed by the family on a very small budget considering the work that has been carried out. The kitchen now looks like a bespoke £10k kitchen but at a fraction of the cost.

You don't have to buy new.
First we managed to buy a second hand kitchen, try searching through local papers and E-bay to find a second hand kitchen. It doesn't matter what doors or work tops are on the kitchen just make sure that the carcasses are in good condition. We were lucky and managed to pick up a second hand kitchen for £300 and this included nearly enough kitchen units for the whole kitchen including the island.

Shop around.
With the kitchen units in place it was now time to buy the cupboard doors and here is where we spent the most money. My biggest piece of advice is to shop around we started our search in all the local stores including Homebase and B&Q and got quotes from these. We then went to places like Howdens for further quotes but these were still coming out higher than our budget allowed. Then we took to the internet and found a company that would make all the custom door sizes that we needed for around half the cost. There was a wait for the doors to be made but the savings we made the wait was worth it. The bonus with building our kitchen ourselves was that for each section we could shop around for the best price. Our kitchen sink came from Ikea, the worktop from Homebase, the doors, hinges, draw runners and door handles all online the match board from the local Jewsons and tiles from Topps Tiles. Each shop has its own special offers and deals so it is worth shopping around if your on a tight budget but it is possible to build a stunning kitchen for a quarter of the cost.

Finishing touches.
Next buy your door handles and hinges and again we shopped around and found a supplier on E-bay that was selling soft close hinges for 99p each. We now have a beautiful kitchen with amazing soft close doors and draws and it looks expensive but it really didn't cost a fortune.

If in doubt get the paint out!
Even if you can't afford a whole new kitchen by painting an old kitchen and just buying new handles can make a massive difference and give your kitchen a fresh new look. With all the end panels in the kitchen, rather than buying matching panels in the same material as the doors we used a match board style MDF and painted them. This same material was used all around the island and looks wonderful.