Kitchen DIY

During the new year winter months, I always think it is a good idea to get a house project underway. We needed a kitchen and utility makeover. Our white units had chips in and the coating had turned a yucky yellow. We tried cleaning it all but that didn't work! Our second thought was to buy new doors but IKEA don't make this sized kitchen anymore which left us with a dilemma with a surprising lack of options other than to buy a whole new kitchen even though there was nothing wrong with the functionality of the old one. 

Then one day at the start of January I saw some spray paint and decided to see if we could spray the doors. I didn't have high hopes if I am honest, I thought it might look a bit of a bodge but it worked brilliantly. It was not an easy task for us because we do not have a garage so we had to keep taking a few doors at a time to my mums garage and spraying them there. The dog had to be in the crate because while we had the doors off he would have eaten the contents of our lower cupboards!

Slowly but surely we replaced each door. Each one sugar soaped before spraying with three coats. It dried in 20 mins so it wasn't too bad. Next up my very own handy Andy fitted new work tops which we bought from IKEA. It lifted the whole kitchen and made everything on the worktops look so much nicer.

Lastly the tiles. As with all of these types of jobs, the more you do, the more something else looks tatty. The blue and grey started to look a bit overwhelming so I bought some tile stickers from Etsy to brighten up the tiles and the gap in between the units. More sugar soaping and an hour later, it was the finish we needed; the illusion of new tiles.

The final piece of decor was a giant wall art sticker reading 'kitchen - tasters required'

So if you are thinking/dreaming you need a new kitchen try out some of these revamps to save your pennies. This is what we used:

Rustoleum Spray paint £7.50 x 5 = £37.50
Etsy Tile Stickers £17.00 per pack of 24 x 3 = £51.00
IKEA Worktops £86.00 x 3 = £258.00
Etsy Wall sticker = £18.00
A new extractor fan = £52.00
Screwfix LED light strips = £20.00

TOTAL = £436.00 You could add a zero on the end of that if we had bought a new kitchen and it was great not to have the upheaval. It feels good to use the hyperbole, 'we did it 10 times cheaper,' and actually achieve it.

A bit before:

and after:

One very well timed winter job. I have read about other bloggers who are feeling the need to freshen up at this time of year. 
What do you think?

Jo xxxx