February 12, 2012

Kitchen Before And After aka The Results Of The Tart Up.

Longer term readers of this blog (are there any of you left after my sporadic posting of late?) will remember me posting about "tarting up" the kitchen in The New House.  Our budget did not run to a new kitchen and so I went to work on the pre-existing fifteen year old kitchen.

Here is a before.

Before (Complete With My Tote On The Ground)

The kitchen had lots of really good things going for it.  The lay out was great and the cupboards were excellent quality.  There was also lots of natural light and the wooden parquetry floor had the potential to be repolished and sealed.  The down side was that the bench top had really worn out in places and was also very faded and suffering from a lot of deterioration under the window. The appliances also didn't work properly any more. I'll be honest and say the colour scheme wasn't really me either.

Here is the finished kitchen now.

Before.

I got the cabinet maker to remove the doors and spray them in a satiny white finish.  I ummed and ahhed about this for months.  The doors were originally Tasmanian Oak which was OK however I already had a lot of wooden furniture and the floors were also wood.  In the end I decided to go for the painted finish and I am really glad I did.  The same cabinet maker also made me a new bench top out of gloss laminate.    A Caesar Stone one would have been fantastic but it was pretty hard to justify putting a bench top worth that much on to fifteen year old cupboard carcasses.

New knobs were also put on the cupboards and all the hinges that were dodgy were fixed or replaced.  The tiles came away when the old bench top came out.  I almost replaced them with white subway tiles but I decided against it as I hate cleaning grout!  I chose a glass splash back in a smoky grey to go with the bench top.  The walls were repainted and the floor polished and resealed.

Overall I am completely thrilled with the result and am hoping that this kitchen will last for another ten years at least.  The thing that made this worth doing was the fact that the kitchen lay out was very practical and the cupboards were fantastic quality and in relatively good condition.  (I am eternally grateful to the previous owners because all the fittings and the finish of this house are of really high quality.) If you are a handy DIY type (which I am obviously not) then you could keep the budget right down by doing the painting yourself.  Otherwise apparently some panel beaters will also spray doors etc.

So there you go.  My "tarted up" kitchen.  Better late then never.

More Kitchen.

14 comments:

Emma said...

The kitchen looks fantastic! You must be thrilled with it. Having had high gloss laminate that survived the renovation (and my two whirlwinds of destruction and mayhem) without a single chip, dent or scratch and ceaserstone that has chipped and stained, despite being treated like it is a priceless antique, I know what I will be choosing in the future! x

Diminishing Lucy said...

♥ it! I am envious of the big space!

Mrs. Exeter said...

That looks fantastic - what a beautiful room!

Sydney Shop Girl said...

I love the new look kitchen, AFW! So much space and light.

SSG xxx

Sydney Shop Girl blog

Lisa @ Blithe Moments said...

It looks great! My kitchen was a very similar story, great structure, excellent cupboards (luckily white so didn't need to be painted), but non-working appliances, swirly brown laminate and peach tiles. The facelift made such a difference.

I am so jealous of the light in your kitchen though! It must be lovely to work in.

Donna said...

Wow - great job! It lightens up the whole room! Love it!

Bungalowgirl said...

Great work, love a good kitchen tart up. We have tassy oak doors in Betsy's kitchen and with wooden floors it is just way too much brown. Unfortunately our layout is a disaster and it all has to go, including a wall. Would be so much easier to just paint it all white, great choice. melx

The Distressed Mother said...

Well done! Looks fabulous. You'll be cooking up a storm aye.

TDM xx

Tales of a Tai Tai said...

I'm SO impressed with the tarty kitchen!! It's heaven. I love the exposed shelves. Very cool x

A Farmer's Wife said...

Thanks everyone. I was really happy with the result given our budget.

Semi Expat said...

LOVE it.. How wonderful does the new tarted up kitchen look. Amazing how painting can make a difference along with new knobs etc. Fabulous. We did something similar in UK at our cottage at the end of last year. Promise to do a post on it soon. x

Mel @ Coal Valley View said...

I love it!! It makes a huge difference just painting the cupboard doors. Amazing!

Same problem with our place here - all Tas oak everywhere which is great quality but way too much brown. I'm thinking of painting the cupboard doors white and was also thinking of subways but with a grey/darker colour grout. Would that solve the problem of cleaning the grout as I definitely do not want to be cleaning more than I do!!!

deux chiens et un garcon said...

your right the space had good bones. looking pretty schmicky now. and your house is so clean! Bliss x

Heidi said...

Fabulous! Love what you did. A good layout makes a huge difference, as does a solidly made kitchen to start with. The makeover was definitely worth it xx