The Budget-Friendly Kitchen Decor Idea That'll Give Your Cabinets A Custom Look

Custom kitchen cabinetry can be a beautiful but expensive way to take your kitchen to the next level. While high-end cabinetry tends to revel in small details like hand carving and exquisite hardware, builder-grade and budget-friendly cabinets more often do not. While many designers think splurging a little on kitchen cabinetry is a worthwhile investment, sometimes that money is better spent elsewhere. This may leave you looking for a way to elevate the look of new low-cost cabinets, or cabinets you already own, in an economical way. While there are many suggestions in the design world for making inexpensive cabinets look more upscale, like adding new hardware or a coat of paint, one of the simplest solutions may be adding some purely decorative brackets to the wall beneath mounted cabinets.

Wooden brackets, which are sold in a variety of styles, designs, and sizes, can be an extremely low-cost, high-impact design element that is incredibly easy to install. You can find simple metal and sleek wooden brackets for more contemporary spaces, or highly ornate carved brackets perfect for more maximalist design schemes and vintage-inspired kitchens. It's a touch that can be added as part of a kitchen remodel, or whenever you'd like to punch up the level of architectural detail in your kitchen.

To give your cabinets a fresh new look, simply screw the new brackets into the existing cabinets and the wall. They can be painted or finished in the exact same color of stain as the cabinets above, making them a perfect means of adding a custom-built look and architectural interest to the frequently dead space below typical cabinetry. They can immediately create a built-in cabinetry look in your kitchen and provide some nice vertical elements that help elongate the space between the counter and cabinets.

Brackets under the cabinets can also provide a perfect spot for a small tension rod or wooden dowel that can hold hooks for mugs, potholders, or other kitchen essentials up off the counter. Decorative brackets are also great for adding to floating shelves, even if they do not provide actual support for the shelving. A set of pretty brackets can also work as corbels that flank any opening, such as a shelf alcove, to give a more finished and contained look to the space.