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10 Stylish Ways to Update Your Wood Kitchen Cabinets — Without Painting!

Wait: Before you scrap your wood kitchen cabinets, here are some design tricks to salvage their dated look without painting them.

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Photo: Raquel Langworthy Photography. From: Naomi Stein.

Make Your Wood Cabinets Work for You

In a design world that tells you to paint your wood cabinets or ditch them altogether, we'd like you to reconsider. There are several ways to redeem your wood cabinets and make them work for your desired kitchen aesthetic. From swapping out hardware to dressing them up with a tile backsplash, we've got 10 ways to style wood kitchen cabinetry.

Kitchen Designs From HGTV Stars

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Photo: Katie Charlotte

Opt for a Colorful Backsplash

Instead of painting your cabinets a fun bright color, try it out on your backsplash. This vibrant blue tile backsplash livens up these wood cabinets and breathes life into the kitchen.

see more of this no reno kitchen

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Bring in Black Countertops

There are fewer more sophisticated kitchen color schemes than black countertops paired with light wood cabinets. If your current wood cabinets are too dark or have too many red tones to fit this look, sand them down and bleach the wood to dampen the warm glow and achieve a more contemporary aesthetic.

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Photo: Cate Black. From: Butter Lutz Interiors.

Make a Statement With Stone

Statement-making stone, like this waterfall marble countertop and backsplash, never looks bad. In fact, it can brighten up and visually upgrade nearly everything it touches, including wood cabinetry.

see these tips on selecting countertops

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