How do I transform a kitchen?

You could always do open shelving if you don't like the look of the usual cabinetry used in a kitchen or you could use those metal garage-style cabinets for an industrial look. Check out the tool storage areas of big box stores for ideas.

It all depends on what style of kitchen you want. You can live without base cabinets all together if you hang everything on your walls. Or you could keep all your pots etc. in a pantry or closet near by. When you really think about it most of us use the same three pots and pans every day. You could make roll out boxes for under the cabinets using materials from building stores. Or you could go to a store that sells used kitchen things and pick up mix-matched cabinets (and put wheels on them, or not). You could look for a crummy dresser at a yard sale that would fit under your cabinets and paint each drawer a different color. That way you would have drawers! You could go '30's style and put café curtains on rods under your cabinets and store your things in plastic bins etc. Hope this helps!

When my kitchen was being remodeled I searched Freecycle.Com, Craigslist, Offerup, Goodwill and Builders Supply Liquidation stores such as Habitat ReStore for dressers of approximately the same height. The dressers were custom made into upper and lower cabinets. They all got new doors so they look uniform. In the lower we have cabinets under the sink and one in the Butler Pantry with pull out shelves. The rest are long and deep drawers which makes it a lot easier on this old back. No more bending or getting on my hands and knees to look for something in the back of a cabinet.

After they were installed and painted you could never tell they were once all different dressers.