I was writing and working on a little how to buy antiques online, but my mother in law prompted me to share this make over which I did kind of just throw myself into!
Now first up, disclaimer I am a hoarder so when it came to transforming our kitchen I did have the shelves, spice rack (use to be my tray at craft fairs whited I used to sell my badges) and plants. I have had all these items for over 10 years but I if you inject a little imagination when looking at old shelves you might have around the house these can easily be painted up.
When we came to view the house back in June I personally wasn’t too focused on the size of the kitchen but I was starting to worry that I wasn’t remembering it correctly it had 6 months from viewing to actually being handed the keys in December.
The walls were an off green and the tiles were this light brown that did look really grubby we live in it for about 3 days before both me and ben got a massive tub of white paint and got rid of the light green. It then 2 weeks later that one day I just couldn’t look at it anymore I had cleaned and scrubbed the cupboards and I desperately wanted open plan shelves, I’m not a big fan of the light wood style so you can see below the photos from the estate agents shots. Its a pretty bright kitchen its a great shape and I love the arch and open style kitchen.
Like I said we love the fact its open planned, the kitchen is actually an extension on the house done about 15 years ago, so the space between the kitchen and dinning room was actually were the old kitchen use to be, buts another space that we are going to tackle at some other point.
I had been looking for affordable kitchens but to me they didn’t feel all that affordable, coming from living in one small room in a parents house scrimping and saving to be able to put a deposit down had depleted our savings. so one morning whilst making a cup of tea I opened the cupboard door and just thought to myself why don’t I just take them off so a few hours later I was deep in tile paint and working my little bum off getting the walls finished.
I wanted the tiles to be plain white, so I picked up wilkinson’s own tile paint for £11 but currently its £15 in store its one coat of pretty stinky paint, it can be hard to handle at points and being an artist I’m pretty use to handling a paint brush / paint.
The tile paint was a little smelly so I did the tiles one day and the rest of the shelving units the next just to reduce the chance of me getting a headache I am a tad sensitive to smells, I wanted the paint to be durable and because its waterproof, I don’t have to worry to much about spillages.
You can see the kitchen just before I put the screw hooks in after I had finished painting the space, I wanted to get a full set of shelves made customised to the side wall, but as I couldn’t find a space for my old Ikea wooden shelves I popped them up onto the work space and they fitted perfectly. With some left over pink wood paint I decided pink was better then wood and whilst watching pride and prejudice I had a whole new set of shelves.
Trying to make use of the space in the kitchen, I decided to buy screw in hooks for us to hang our favourite cups on, also to make more use of the cupboard space I bought slot in metal trays that can be hooked over the shelves inside the cupboards.
Open shelves are obviously wonderful for sharing all my antique and vintage dinning ware, but I kept the doors on the bottom cupboards so we can pop all our extra items in there. I decided to pop most of my baking goods in jars its so much easier to access then them being hidden away.
Its dawn on me transform a space completely I have to have greenery, flowers, plants I think it just brings a space together. I grew up in my mother’s kitchen that was just an abundance of home grown veg, loads of plants aloe Vera, spider plants, casts offs from Woolworths that my mum had rescued for 50p! My plants come from a a range of places, I managed to get my Aloe Vera from Aldi, I know right now its not a necessity but you can purchase them in store. My wonderful cactus I got via Blooming Skull Coffee shop which we popped to before lockdown, all my others I have had for years and inherited a few off my mum, but you can purchase plants from places like B&Q and local florists when they are open.
To me a kitchen has to be inviting, homely and welcoming. Right now we haven’t fully completed the space, we need to spray paint the silver handles black and paint the walls in maybe a peach colour. But after two days worth of work I really love the kitchen and it will bring me joy until we can afford to change the cupboards, sinks and tiles.
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