The kitchen is one of the most important rooms in the house. The problem is that most of us spend very little effort ensuring that our kitchens are pleasant places to spend time in. It doesn't matter who does the majority of the cooking in your house, they still have to use the kitchen to do it so why are our kitchens often so uninviting and boring?

We tend to spend time on equipment for our kitchen rather than concentrating on the overall feel of the room. I must admit I used to hate spending time in the kitchen because it looked so drab and I would often prepare meals in the fastest possible time just so I didn't have to stay in the kitchen for a moment longer than I absolutely had to! Then I thought to myself that it was about time I made the kitchen a great place to be. Now what could I do to my kitchen, without spending a fortune on expensive accessories, to brighten the place up?

The first thing I looked at was the lighting. Yes, I know it sounds obvious, but one of the main reasons that my kitchen felt dull was because it WAS dull! I took a look at the hideous fluorescent tube lighting that I had and decided to look for some more innovative ways to shine a spotlight on my kitchen work surface. The answer was right there ? get some spotlights. No, I don't mean the huge ones that you see outside the movie awards, just simple small spotlights that could be set to different directions to light up even the gloomiest corners of my kitchen.

Now I had a bit of light on the subject I could instantly see which area of the kitchen I should tackle next. This was the boring, plain walls that had a predictably neutral shade of cream. I hate wallpapering so I decided to paint the walls, just to freshen them up. I wasn't going to leave it there as I was merely replacing one plain colour with another. I wanted to have some fun so I asked my kids to cut out pictures from magazines to do with food and we made a collage on one wall of the kitchen. It may not be to everyone's taste but it certainly livens the kitchen up.