Our kitchen is stuck in the early 90’s. It needs a revitalization. Badly. But we can’t afford it.

It has oak cabinets and white appliances. All still very functional. So forking over a few thousand to upgrade isn’t in the budge at this point in time. I painted the handles on the cupboards black a few years ago. So there’s that.

About 8 years ago, I had inserted new pot lights into the drop down ceiling. I am also really into steampunk, so I spray painted our ceiling tiles copper with black trim. It looked cool, but the kitchen was so dark even with new lights we had to do something about it. I tried adding more lights, but that didn’t help.

Over the course of the past couple days, I have been pulling off the ceiling tiles and painting them white. Suddenly our kitchen is brighter and looks bigger. All it cost me was a can of paint and a few hours labor. I’m happy with the results.

It’ll keep me from spending a few thousand dollars for at least another 5 years.