How to Update a Kitchen with Brown Granite and Outdated Features (No Big Budget Needed!)

Inside: Give your outdated kitchen a fresh look—here’s how to work with brown granite and other dated features, without a remodeling budget..

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When I moved into my downsized villa a little over a year ago, I knew right away the kitchen was going to be a decorating challenge. While I loved the open layout with its large island overlooking the family room, the finishes—from the brown granite countertops to the (also brown) 4×4 inch backsplash tiles, are straight outta early 2000s, and not in a cool way. On top of that, I’ve had white cabinets for so long that I couldn’t decide if I liked the stained wood either.

But a full kitchen renovation is not in the budget for now. And believe me, for someone who puts their kitchen out there on the internet writing about decorating and demoing recipes, that’s hard.

So instead of remodeling, I decided to work with this slightly outdated kitchen. To decorate around what I had. After a couple of “what-do-I-have-to-lose” experiments and some small changes, I was able to update it with almost no money spent—and now I’m a whole lot happier with it!

If you’re also dealing with a kitchen that’s dated but don’t have the budget to renovate, I hope these ideas that I used can help you decorate without remodeling, too.

What Makes a Kitchen Feel Outdated?

Even if your kitchen is functional, these common features can make it feel stuck in the past:

• Brown or speckled granite (think Santa Cecilia or Uba Tuba granite)
• Tumbled or 4×4 backsplash tiles
• Builder-grade or mismatched lighting from another decade
• Tuscan or ornate traditional finishes
• Cabinets in orange, red, or yellow wood tones or with ornate molding
• Short upper cabinets
• No cabinet hardware
• Warm-toned light bulbs that cast a yellowish glow

I was dealing with most of these. Here’s my kitchen before I moved in:

It has a great layout and it’s only one decade behind in style, so I knew it would be simple to freshen it up—but that still costs a lot of money. For now, instead of changing out any expensive features, I focused on updating what I could—on an almost no budget plan. Here are the things that worked for me:

Embrace the Granite Instead of Fighting It.

Let’s start with the elephant in the kitchen: the countertops. My speckled brown granite countertops have tan, gold, and dark flecks. They are nice quality, functional, and yes, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them. They’re just not my style anymore. Instead of ignoring them or trying to disguise them (which only makes them stand out more), I learned to decorate with them.

Here’s how I style around the brown speckled granite:

• I use light-colored, clean-lined accessories like white canisters, vases, bowls, and pedestals as much as possible to bring contrast, lightness, and a more updated look. (I even bought white bar stools to break up all the brown.)

• I stay away from large pieces of decor in warm colors that pull out the mid-tones of the granite and also cool tones that clash—both make the granite look more golden. Instead, I lean into glass and white accents that harmonize better and don’t fight the colors in the counter. (But a little blue and white chinoiserie goes with everything!)

• I add natural textures like baskets, wood cutting boards, and woven trays to create softness around the stone, and the ceramic and glass decor. I find that very light or very dark shades work best so I’m not adding a whole lot more medium brown to the brown kitchen.

The key is to stop pretending the granite isn’t there. Instead, make everything around it feel fresh, modern, and balanced by choosing neutral colors that will harmonize with it, not clash with it.

Replace Outdated Lighting and Bulbs.

The red pendants and the outdated builder-grade Tuscan-style chandelier with its yellow glass globes and iron scrolls were actually more offensive to me than anything else in the kitchen.

Since I’m working on a budget and my home has dark metal hardware throughout, I replaced them for more current fixtures with cleaner lines in dark, almost black metals. I scored the Pottery Barn bell jar kitchen pendants on FBMP:

And found a kitchen table chandelier at Ballard Designs to coordinate:

Swapping out light fixtures is one of the most budget-friendly ways to change the feel of your kitchen.

And an easy update but one of the biggest game changers? Swapping out the old incandescent yellow-toned bulbs for daylight LEDs. The entire kitchen instantly looked brighter, cleaner, and fresher. I normally don’t care for the harshness of the daylight bulbs, but having them in this yellow-toned kitchen really tamped down the golden cast of the counters and cabinets! I added a dimmer to soften the harsher light ever so slightly.

Lighten the Backsplash Without Replacing It.

My current backsplash was originally tan and very blah. While it was neutral (it could have been a lot worse), it wasn’t the best backsplash to break up the huge wall of brown between the counters and the cabinets. Here is the original look:

Since it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, I gave it a facelift with a whitewash effect. Using diluted paint and a rag, I lightened the color and toned down the tan undertones. Here it is after:

It doesn’t look brand new, but it did brighten the whole wall and tone down the yellow cast of the travertine over the range—for only the price of a fraction of a can of paint and some Grout Renew.

You can see all the details of how I did it in the post: “How I Whitewashed My Backsplash Tile for a Budget Friendly Kitchen Facelift“.

Tone Down Golden or Orange Cabinets With a Subtle Black Wash.

I believe my kitchen cabinets are stained knotty alder wood—very Texan or Tuscan, however you choose to see it. I’ve had white cabinets for years so this is a nice change, especially because they contrast with the white walls and warm up this kitchen. But still because it’s me, something about the color and sheen just wasn’t working. The best way I can describe it is they were too honey-ish.

For an inexpensive simple fix to the color cast, I mixed a small amount of black craft paint with water, brushed it on the cabinets lightly, and wiped it off. I found it toned down the yellow/orange tint just a skosh without hiding the wood grain, making them a more neutral shade. And bonus: it also muted the varnish that was a little too glossy—giving the cabinets a beautiful, slightly aged look.

The black wash does darken the cabinets a little, so I used a bit less on the lower cabinets that don’t catch the light.

If you look closely, you can see the slight difference in the color and sheen on the inside of this door that I didn’t wash next to the cabinet on the right with the wash:

This change is so subtle I may be the only one that would even notice. But in my eyes it made the cabinet stain color so much better, yet it still blends with the gold-tone granite counters and the reddish-tone wood floors. And it all cost less than five dollars.

If you have orange tone or honey oak cabinets that you don’t like but are afraid to try this technique, test the dark glaze wash inside one of the doors first.

Add Cabinet Hardware for an Instant Update.

My cabinets originally didn’t have any hardware, and I was constantly trying to open the wrong side of a cabinet door or breaking a nail opening a drawer. So I added a combination of knob and pulls, mostly for functionality in my case—but cabinet hardware is always a great opportunity to inject a more current style into the kitchen! I went with more timeless and traditional styles in dark bronze to blend with the rest of the kitchen—ones that I felt wouldn’t go out of date too fast. My favorites are the long cabinet pulls that I was able to buy in packs of different lengths on Amazon.

You don’t have to spend a fortune to get this impactful update. Look for multi-packs of knobs and pulls on Amazon, or even try secondhand or salvaged hardware. You can always spray paint them to be the color you want.

Decorate the Tops of Cabinets (Sparingly).

My upper cabinets have that awkward space above them, which can be tricky to decorate without looking cluttered or outdated (hello, faux greenery and ivy of the eighties and nineties). Since replacing the cabinets with ones that reach the ceiling wasn’t happening, I used that blank area to pull the eye up and add some softness. But I didn’t overdo—I only used sizable pieces and only in three groupings:

• Current styles of white pottery to bring neutral interest
• A collection of copper for warmth and patina
• A couple of blue glass vases for color

This styling helped balance the visual weight of the granite and cabinets below, and filled this empty space in a more updated way.

Use Paint and Color to Shift the Tone.

Even if you can’t change the granite counters, the backsplash, or the floors, you can help change how the room feels with the wall color. Choosing the right tone of paint colors is key. My kitchen was already painted a warm white so it had that going for it!

For kitchens with brown granite and gold-tone cabinets or floors, look for:

• Warm white or creamy neutrals
• Soft greige (like Sherwin-Williams Accessible Beige or Benjamin Moore Edgecomb Gray)
• Earthy sage or very muted green if you want color

Avoid grays, stark cool whites, and anything with blue undertones—they’ll make warm finishes like granite or tile look even more orange or golden.

More Easy Ways to Update Your Kitchen Without Spending Money.

• Style your countertops with less. Group items in a tray or large board and keep countertop items minimal.
• Add more light with a lamp or sconce
• Remove upper cabinet doors on one section for open shelving.
• Rearrange decor you already have—try out framed art, lamps, or even baskets you aren’t using elsewhere.
• Clean thoroughly. Old grout, cloudy glass, and dusty cabinet tops instantly date a kitchen.
• Remove any obstructions from windows and let in as much natural light as possible.
• Remove dark and heavy decor.
• Use white dishware as accessories.
• Remove all clutter for visual calm.

As you can see, small changes really can transform how a room feels.

I still want to replace the granite and backsplash in my kitchen someday. But in the meantime, I’ve learned how to live with them, and now I enjoy being in my new-to-me kitchen.

If you want more details on any of the tricks I used above, make sure and check out my kitchen decorating series over the next few months, with posts that go into more detail on toning down orange cabinets, styling kitchen counters, paint colors for brown granite, kitchen hardware, and how to decorate above cabinets.

I hope my kitchen “no demo reno” experience also helps you figure out how to decorate without remodeling, so you can feel more at home in the heart of your home too!

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