As you know we moved into our family home on January 10 of this year, 2019, we have done a lot of work to the house and more recently we have up-cycled the kitchen cupboards. What a difference it has made? I wanted to go through the steps we have made in the kitchen makeover to make it what it is today: a journey through the 8 months! I think we have transformed the kitchen with very little budget and it’s a great family space.

Before

So, the all important before photos. The following photos are of the day we moved in. As you can see: the walls are yellow, the floor is a beige lino, we have a floral pattern on the tiles and we have the old cooker. This cooker must have been about 40 years old and it was in pristine condition until we moved in!

This is a better shot of the cooker area:

Stage 1

Stage 1 of the kitchen makeover was to make room for our beautiful Rangemaster oven, this has become the focal point of that area and still needs finishing off. We need a splash back and a proper hood for the area – this will hopefully cover up the floral tiled area properly. As you can see in the photo below I have tried to cover the pattern up with tile paint and now it looks even worse!

The other thing we had done was these fabulous (and waterproof) Luxury Vinyl Tiles from Floors Today. It completely transformed the feel of the downstairs from the front door to the kitchen. Everywhere feels cleaner and easier to keep clean too – especially with the pets and children.

We got a dishwasher from ao.com too and installed that at the end of the units by the sink. This has finished off that end of the kitchen nicely as before it was just a gap and it felt like a wasted space to me.

Stage 2

This is where we are now. I painted our kitchen cupboards on bank holiday weekend. It took me 12 hours and I did it all in one day. I love it. We went from a really dark feeling kitchen to a bright kitchen. It’s amazing how the worktop looks really different now. I used “Cool Beans” from the Frenchic Al Fresco range. I will be writing the step by steps on how I did this in a separate post (I will update this page with a link when complete). We use ADDIS housewares for kitchen storage, it’s really clean and keeps things organised – just how I like it!

What is next?

The next thing on the agenda is to look at replacing the worktops, we want something darker to match the black appliances and bring some colour to the kitchen. Then, we need to think about the walls – I want to take all of the tiles off (which will then need plastering) and I think I just want the walls to be painted. Creating a worktop upstand around the units will remove the need for the tiles. I have been looking at kitchen units to fill in the gap by the sink and cover up the boiler area.

What do you think so far? I would love to know your ideas on worktops and if we should get tiles or just paint it. Oh and also on a decent splash back and hood for the oven! So many things to think about! Finding new companies with fabulous products, like Kitchen Warehouse and Floors Today has been fun too, I spend hours browsing websites for that perfect item for the kitchen.

For clarity: we were gifted the kitchen flooring from Floors Today, the kettle and toaster from Haden UK and the dishwasher from ao.com in previous collaborations and the paint/brushes from Frenchic to create the transformation in our kitchen. We paid for the Rangemaster and Microwave ourselves.

What do you think?

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2 Comments
  • Fiona jk42
    Monday, January 27, 2020

    Your kitchen is looking great after your makeover. One thing you might want to consider is getting a steel or glass splashback. You could install this over the tiles, and would definitely cover up all of the floral tiles. Glass splashbacks come in lots of colours, and one advantage is there are no grout lines to clean.

  • Nolene O'neill
    Saturday, May 9, 2020

    love the change! I have just started and have opted to paint the tiles as it’s just too much hassle and money to rip out and replace just cant decide on cupboard colours yet! p.s loving the Frenchic paint