Thrifty Cottage Style Kitchen Ideas | 10 Beautiful & Easy DIYs

Today I’m excited to share some of the thrifty cottage style kitchen ideas I’m thinking about as we start to plan the kitchen makeover for our new house.

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We are finally getting ready to start the kitchen makeover.

But, that doesn’t mean that I am just now coming up with a plan.

If you know my husband and I then you know we have been making plans and changing them for the past 6 months haha!

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Since moving in, we’ve been in the kitchen with a tape measure, and the Home Depot and Amazon apps measuring and pricing things.

Now that we are getting ready to start the demo side of the project we are both feeling very excited about the plan.

It only took us 6 months to get to this point haha!

So today I thought it would be fun to share our ideas to create a cottage style kitchen on a budget.

What is a cottage style kitchen?

When I think of a cottage style kitchen I think of a kitchen that is very functional.

It’s beauty is found in its function.

At its core, it’s simple in design and easy to navigate.

Less is more is the approach that I see most frequently in cottage style kitchens.

But the thing I love most about cottage style decor is that is has individuality as well.

Some people will be bold and dramatic, some will be timeless and rustic, yet others will be light and airy.

The options are endless really.

However as a general rule, you’re going to find a lot of cottage style kitchens are simple and functional.

Below I’ve shared a few of my favorite elements of a cottage kitchen, and bonus, these are all elements that can be done on a budget!

Thrifty Cottage Style Kitchen | Bead Board Backsplash

At the house right now our kitchen walls are in need of some love.

When we removed the industrial pipe open shelves from the walls they all pulled paint off with them.

Leaving us with these beautiful circles haha!

I also didn’t like the butcher block backsplash that was there so I removed it as well.

Again, it left some unsightly marks on the wall.

Since there is already bead board in the dining room, which is connected to the kitchen, we decided to go with a bead board backsplash.

But we plan to install the bead board from the counter to the ceiling.

This option means we can just cover up the glossy paint and marks on the wall with less work.

Lisa from Farmhouse on Boone did a full wall of bead board backsplash in her kitchen and I love the look.

I’d be lying if I said it was just because of the look that we landed on this option.

This is also going to be the easiest and cheapest way to get the kitchen walls looking finished.

For us, cost and time are always being balanced with style.

Thrifty Cottage Style Kitchen | Open Shelves

This is something that I’ll be bringing from our old house.

I loved the open shelves in the old house so much.

When we first installed them I remember getting a lot of comments about dust and dirt.

I was worried about it a little, but wanted to give it a try.

I discovered that when I stored items that we used regularly on the shelves the dust build up was minimal.

So we are going to do them at the new house.

But, they are going to look a little different.

Andrea with Pine and Prospect Home DIYed a few open shelves using corbels instead of the DIY brackets that we made.

For this kitchen I want to soften the look a little so I want to find some corbels like Andrea did with curves.

I also like the look of the shelves being stained a warm wood tone instead of painted.

But I haven’t completely decided what I’ll do there.

Might need to spend a bit more time going through my Pinterest boards to decide.

I was just going through some pictures from our vacation to Williamsburg, Virginia last year and saw these shelves that were in the governors kitchen.

I love the corbels and shelves stacked upon shelves.

And guess what?

They are a warm wood tone haha!

Thrifty Cottage Style Kitchen | Peg Rail

This is something I’ve gone back and forth with in my own head a bunch of times.

I really miss the wooden peg rail from our old kitchen, but I also really like the way the new hanging pot rack looks.

So I’m still deciding on what to do under the open shelves for our cottage style kitchen update.

Wooden peg rack or metal rack?

My husband doesn’t have a preference here so I’m flying solo on this decision.

But today, I’m leaning toward a simple peg rack again.

Thrifty Cottage Style Kitchen | Dish Rack

This is something that I have seen and wanted to do for a long time.

At the old house I thought about building a dish rack and putting it on the wall beside the pantry.

But now that we’re at the new house with a new kitchen layout I’m thinking about a dish rack that is more like Deborahs from Seeking Lavender Lane.

We are struggling to find plans that match the exact thing I want, so I think we’re gonna “wing it”.

If you’re interested in doing this kind of DIY project make sure you’re signed up for the emails I send out each week.

My engineer husband is putting my design into Google sketch-up and I hope to be able to share it with you all once we’re done.

If you don’t want to do this DIY I think you can order a dish rack like the one from Seeking Lavender Lane on her website.

Thrifty Cottage Style Kitchen | No Sew Cafe Curtains

This was such an easy DIY I already did it!

I opted for the no sew cafe curtains from tea towels for now.

I might do the full DIY of turning thrifted fabric into a curtain for this window, but for now a quick and easy tea towel is working fine.

Not to mention the simplicity of the tea towels is a beautiful statement in and of itself.

Thrifty Cottage Style Kitchen | Cabinet Curtains

We have a cabinet that is slightly different in color in the kitchen.

Before the Amish family moved in this space was where a dishwasher was.

When we first moved in my husband wanted to buy me a dishwasher.

He knows and appreciates all the work and time that goes into feeding our family and wanted to make my life easier.

But I told him that I think it would be fine to not have them.

I think my exact words were something like “When this house was built they didn’t use dishwashers. If they can do it, so can I.”

Well, I wasn’t wrong.

But I’ve learned that modern conveniences aren’t all bad.

So we are going to buy a dishwasher and put it back in this space.

But I’m not a huge fan of the way a dishwasher looks and I want to try to hide it with a cabinet curtain.

Cami with Tidbits did this in her butler pantry and they look beautiful.

When I talked to her about them and the way they function she said that heavy fabric makes it hard to get in and grab what you want.

So I’m thinking I’ll try it out on this small section and see how it goes.

It may or may not stay.

But it will definitely add that cottage style to the kitchen while it’s there.

Thrifty Cottage Style Kitchen | Hanging Pot Rack

This is something that I shared last week.

Hanging pots and pans on the wall is a great way to add cottage style.

If you don’t want to store all your everyday pots and pans on the wall another option is to find some copperware at thrift stores or garage sales, and just hang a small collection.

Thrifty Cottage Style Kitchen | Switch Out Hardware

In general the hardware on our cabinets is doing okay functionally.

But there are a few cabinets where the knob is wiggly and it just wont stay tight no matter how much you tighten it.

So we want to update the hardware here with brass hardware like we did at the old house.

Such a simple update and it will add so much charm.

I’m not sure if I’ll find anything in my price range like what is on these cabinets from Grit & Polish, but I would love that.

Thrifty Cottage Style Kitchen | Painted Cabinets (With Color)

This is a big change in plans that has happened in the past 6 months.

If I had started the kitchen updates in January like we originally planned these cabinets wouldn’t be blue.

They would be a creamy white or a light beige.

But, over the past 6 months the blue has really grown on me and I think I like the way it gives the kitchen a pop.

A couple years ago Kelly with Tattered Pew bought a house with blue cabinets and she loves them too.

But I will need to do a little bit of painting.

We had to remove a section of cabinets and slide in an oven range.

But the oven range was smaller than the cabinet that was previously there.

So we filled the gap with a couple small pieces of wood.

Since I’m keeping the blue I’m going to hold me breath and see if Home Depot can color match close enough that it blends.

I’ll also have to paint the quarter round to go under the counter to hide that gap, and the kick board.

Update Light Fixtures

You guys this is the easiest and cheapest way to add cottage style to any space.

In my post about our dining room I talked about light fixtures.

They make such a huge impact to the look and feel of any space.

We haven’t installed it yet, but this is the light I picked for above the sink.

I’ve been seeing a lot of those pleated pendant lights.

I like them, but I also thought it might be nice to do something similar, but not the exact same thing.

It is so simple and love the way it looks.

When the mail man dropped it off I immediately opened it and held it above the since to see what it was going to look like and I think it’s going to be perfect for this space.

I hope that you got a few easy and cheap ideas for how to transform a kitchen into a cottage style kitchen on a budget.

I can’t wait to take you along for the journey and finally finish this room!

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Have a great week! XoXo

Open Your Doors,
Aliya

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