Hey all,
So today I thought I'd share with you a fun project that I finished up the other day.
As you can guess by the title of this post, I redid our kitchen for under $23!.
Now, I am so terrible at taking before shots, and I of course forgot, so here is the closest thing I have to a before..this was taken in April, you might remember it from my Week In The Life series I did.
As you can see, the kitchen was a sea of boring Oak cabinets, no personality whatsoever. No color. BOO! But at least you can enjoy the pic of my super hunky hubby! <3
So here is the AFTER:
When you are on a tight budget but you want to give your kitchen a lift, it can be challenging for sure. A coat of new paint in a fun color is one of the easiest ways, but is not always practical.
The next best thing, in my opinion, is a great piece of art. And it doesn't have to be expensive either. See that guy behind the stove? I painted that. I had the canvas in my garage, and the paints I always have on hand...so I grabbed some paint colors that I wanted to bring out in the kitchen and got to work. It took about 2 hours to paint from start to finish, but I'm very pleased with the end result. :) It was literally a no cost painting.
Oh, and if you are worrying about the canvas being damaged by stray grease or food splatters..don't! I sprayed a double coat of clear matte finish over the whole thing, so it can be easily wiped clean!
The canisters on the counter were also no cost. Remember a couple weeks ago when Jim made me a Cloffice in our bedroom? When I used to scrapbook in the garage, I had all my ribbons sorted by color in the canisters, but alas, there was no room in the cloffice for them. So they were re-purposed into flour, sugar, and brown sugar jars. And the tall one with beans was previously just hanging out on our expedit in the dining room.
The rug on the floor is more of a soft mat, and I found it at Target. It was only $9.99! The brightly colored dish towels were also at Target. I got the blue ones for $2.99 and a pack of two striped orange and and one solid orange for $3.99. What a steal!
A few months ago I was inspired by this post on Apartment Therapy. I loved how this smart girl thought to remove the fronts of her cabinets to reveal her cute Fiesta Ware. What I loved was the fun look of the paper she put in the backs of the shelves, but I was a bit turned off at how busy it looked with every door gone.
After prodding Jim multiple times and making him look at the post, he finally relented and took the doors to the cabinets above the microwave off. Once they were off it made a HUGE difference in the overall feel of the space. It took us two days to agree on which papers we wanted in the shelves. As a scrapbooker, the sheer volume of paper I have is pretty staggering, so we had a lot to choose from. We both immediately loved the blue, but it took a little convincing to get Jim to like the funkadelic paisley print. I actually put it in the shelves temporarily for a day and we looked at it and decided it worked.
Once the papers were up, we chose what to display. One of our Christmas gifts to ourselves was a new set of dishes. We originally found the 10 piece set of small colorful plates at the Goodwill back in November, and then we decided on the off-white bowls and plates as accents. The colors of the plates work well with the papers we chose. Also displayed are my china plates and our Princess House collection of Fantasia Ware.
And I couldn't resist putting my little Gnome in there too. He is special to me because my super talented Grandma Rose carved him for me. She is a brilliant wood carver and she has made tons of little guys like these for the 21 grandchildren. I also have a Santa she made me too. <3
This was Jim's idea...instead of putting an ugly bottle of dish soap on the counter, we used an old syrup jar with a wine cork...much cuter. ;)
Here's a shot from the dining room. I love this table cloth, not only because it's cute...but I'll tell ya a little secret...it is actually a fabric shower curtain from the Target clearance section, and it was $2.48! Can't beat that!
So there you have it, a new kitchen for minimal cost but optimal effect!
Below I broke down the cost, just so you can see how cheap it really was,
Total Cost Breakdown:
Canvas and Paint: $0 (already on hand)
Canisters $0 (already on hand)
Paper $0 (already on hand)
Dish Towels $10
Floor Mat $10
Clearance Shower Curtain $2.50
TOTAL COST: $22.50
I truly believe in shopping around your home first before buying any new pieces. I tend to collect little things here and there around the house and when I'm putting together a new space, I'll pull things from other rooms. It helps with cost but the important thing is to give the pieces you love a home to display them in!
If you've done any new decorating projects lately, leave me a link in the comments, I'd love to check it out!
XOXO,
Em
