kitchen - the makeover

Hello there ! I know my posting has been a bit non existent lately. We've had more than a few computer issues, but I think we're getting there now. I thought it was about time I shared another makeover with you. 

This was the messy kitchen not long after we had moved into our house a few years ago. Please note the large blue bathroom style tiles on the wall, the brown tile effect wallpaper and the brown woodwork. It wasn't really my dream kitchen !

The floor is tiled and I strongly dislike it, but I am afraid I don't have the money or the energy to do anything about that, so that is staying!

But, it's amazing what you can do with a bit of paint. 

This is the same kitchen. It took a LOT of work. The large rayburn cooker was replaced and due to that we had to redo the tiles on the top of the counters. ( I know you probably think I'm mad to have ripped out a rayburn, but it ran on oil and we couldn't even afford to turn it up hot enough to cook anything as it seemed like it just ate fuel. So in the interests of being able to afford to eat, it went.)  We couldn't find the right tiles to replace the missing ones, so I ripped off all the tile on top of the units and scrubbed and scraped all the adhesive off, then bought a similar one and laid them in a chequer board pattern with the original ones. It's subtle, but it works. The cooker hood was originally a beaten copper effect thing which we ripped out and I recovered it  with beadboard.

The units and all the ugly brown woodwork were painted in Farrow and Ball paint - (House White was the shade). The shelves behind the glass doors which were damaged and ugly were edged with a decorative strip from Jali. New handles for the units made a huge difference. I love cup handles!  The nasty big blue tiles were ripped off and replaced with beadboard which I painted in an off white. I tiled behind the hob with white tiles. I redid the ceiling which was artex swirls and had a large rectangle cut-out where a striplight was housed behind some ugly plastic. The kitchen taps were replaced with a much more stylish and user friendly mixer. The walls were painted in a soft green- I forget what the shade was though.

...and the floor...well, I still hate it, but we are going to sell the house soon - hopefully - so I shall be laying down a large rug to minimise the effect of the tiled area.

Would I paint kitchen units again? - Absolutely! It can turn drab into fab!

(Now if I can just keep the counter-tops that tidy, I'll be winning!)

Linking to Met Monday at www.betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com

The Long Haul/hall - the reveal

The hall is finally finished! Yippee! 

I've been taking a trip down memory lane. When we started renovating this house, I did not think to take before photos of everywhere, so all I have managed to find are a couple of photos of my kids. I don't think they'll thank me for posting these. Here is my son quite a few years ago standing in the hall. (He's 19 now, 20 this year). We started ripping things out of the hall a long time ago, then I had a baby who will be 5 this May, and things never got done until very recently. 

By this time we had ripped off a fancy border, taken down a picture rail and party removed some damaged crown moulding. It was looking really pretty!

We've been living with it looking like this for so long, that we got kind of used to it. People would visit and ask if we were in the middle of decorating and I would answer, "Well, sort of "... this went on for several years!

Here's Naomi who is now 17. Awww wasn't she sweet. Looking a bit bedraggled here after a day at primary school.

So now, very thankfully the hall looks like this.....

Phew! 

That's better, I've been waiting a long time for this. Oh, and a big thank you to Leslie who showed me the wonderful beadboard wallpaper which covered up my terrible walls very well! 

Vintage Leather

I finished this chair yesterday after I finally found the piece of leather I'd been looking for (while looking for something else of course). The cushion is one I made a long time ago. It is crazy patchwork and incorporates some hand drawn butterflies. It is trimmed with my favourite red pom poms. I love pom pom trim! Sad, but true!

Here it the chair in it's before state. 

It was another one of my £1 auction bargains.  I think it looks quite "gentleman's study" now. I love the look of the vintage leather, and I only bent a few of the brass upholstery nails in the process! 

I had a little scrap of leather left over, so I upcycled an evaporated milk tin and made a nice pen pot to go with the desk mat and the chair.

I cut the leather to size and then ran it through my "ready for a service" sewing machine before glueing it onto the tin. It's an easy make but looks quite classy. If you have any scraps of old leather, this would make a nice gift for the man in your life.

Bathroom - the makeover

I thought it was about time I showed you some of the changes we have made in this house before we finish it and hopefully sell up and move to another. 

I'm starting off with our bathroom. Now when we started work on the bathroom I didn't keep a blog, and it never occured to me to take good BEFORE shots, so I apologise for the few pictures that I have, but I think you'll get the general idea. It was horrible!

The ceiling was swirly artex, and because we ripped out some units and a big block wall that contained the shower unit, it was patchy and nasty.

Also there was a long striplight inset into the ceiling and it had been framed with dark stained pine and fitted with a patterned plastic. This photo was after we'd ripped off the dark frame and plastic.

The shower was disgusting and dark and dingy and seemed to overpower the room. This was after we'd taken away a panel that went from the top of the door to the ceiling. Yeugh!

We'd just ripped out the large corner avocado coloured bath in this picture. It was on a raised area of flooring all covered with cork tiles and I was forever stubbing my toe on it when I went past to the toilet.  The walls had been stripped of the charming brown and beige tile effect vinyl wallpaper. Are you getting the idea? Not really what one would call an attractive bathroom.

Sorry I don't have more before photos to show you just how yucky it was.

OK...so this is what we've done....

Important change no. 1. Put in a white suite. We also put in a new window. There is nothing but forest behind us so no need for typical bathroom window glass. It gives a much more open feel. 

I used MDF beadboard and painted it in a lovely blue shade. In retrospect, I might have painted it in pale gray or white had I known we'd be moving so soon, but the paint was in the reduced section for £1 a tin, and I bought about 8 tins, so blue it shall stay!

 Now that the block wall is down, the room feels twice as big. There is space for this lovely old chest of drawers which I got from my friends garage. We keep all our toiletries and towels in there. The mirror on the top came from the auction for £15. 

The lovely balloon back chair was another auction bargain for only £5. One day I'll recover the seat, but I don't really mind the shabby old velvet. I've grown kind of fond of it.

The table was £1 at auction and the corner cupboard £3. The shabby painted shelf was made by my dad for a previous kitchen but I don't have anywhere to put it in my present kitchen, so it ended up in here. As you can see we had the ceiling plastered and installed downlighters. 

If I had a wide angle lens perhaps you'd get a better idea. Hope you can spot the improvement! 

I might show you the kitchen next.  

W.I.P.

As I am currently in the middle of so many things and have nothing very exciting to show you, here are Mr Owl and Mr Peacock from a trip to the Black Isle Wildlife Park last month.

Not only have we not finished Naomi's bedroom yet, we have now ripped apart Ben's shower room as the shower wasn't working, the toilet was leaking, and well, it is just a grotty little room, and it was time for some action. I'll try and get some before pictures for you so that I can do that whole 'before and after' thing for a change.

Sour Milk

When we lived in Belize in Central America, we used to watch HGTV on cable. On one particular program, there was a feature with Martha Stewart using milk paint to create a set of shaker style steps for her kitchen. I was so impressed with the finish and the whole concept, that I researched milk paint and eventually bought some from South Africa.

The Original Milk Paint co. says...
Milk Paint is a traditional, long-lasting paint made from milk casein, clay, earth pigments and lime. It is a natural, non-toxic product that bonds with hard porous surfaces, such as sanded wood, by way of a naturally forming resin, called calcium caseinate.

The milk paint comes in powdered form and all you needed to do with this particular variety, was mix with water. This was about 6 or seven years ago, and I carefully stored my milk paint in a tin in a dry place. Funnily enough I stored it in a large KLIM powdered milk tin.
After all this time,(how does life get so busy?) I thought I would try out the paint on one of my auction bargains. I bought this little bathroom corner cupboard a while back for the vast sum of £1. Actually, I think I bought this and a couple of other things for £1! I sanded it back to the bare wood ready to recieve the milk paint.
I followed the instructions carefully and mixed and mixed untill it started to look creamy, and then let it sit for a while to thicken up.
It didn't seem to be thickening up much.
But I went ahead and started painting it on the wood to see what happened. Hmm, don't think it's supposed to be all lumpy and gritty! I had to clean off the cupboard. It seems my milk paint has gone off. I guess the heat in Belize is probably what did it as it has been stored cool and dry enough here. It was probably ruined within the first wee while of owning it. Guess I'll be using ordinary paint this time after all.
I'm not sure if the company is still in business any more, but if they were I think I think I would order more. I have another auction bargain - a hall table that would look gorgeous in this shaker grey/green.

Pot Project

As if I haven't got anything else to do with my time, I decided to revamp an old plantpot. It was one I had picked up at my local auction and had peeling blue paint on it. Sorry - I forgot to photograph the "before".
I gave it a rub with a wire brush to remove the old paint, and then a scrub, and about 4 coats of cream masonry paint, and it was ready for a bit of stencilling. This is something you could do to jazz up any plain plant pot. It's really quick and easy.

I rummaged through my stencil collection - I didn't want to go cutting a new stencil this time.
My stencils have been used for many projects over the years. Walls, furniture, fabric, home accessories etc. Some are made from the kind of acetate that you use for overhead projectors and others are recycled out of shiny card used for the cover of sales brochures and other similar types of card. I simply draw my design and cut out with a sharp scalpel. Mind your fingers!

Here are my tools. I have a number of stencil brushes, but also sometimes improvise a little sponge pad out of a six inch nail and a bit of foam. I wrap the foam around the head of the nail and fix either with a sandwich tie, or a an elastic band.

There are various methods to stencilling, but I prefer the repeated stabbing motion method. I place a little paint in a tub - I reuse milk bottle lids for small amounts of paint (and mixing glues and all sorts of other uses). I load my brush, and then on a spare bit of card or paper - or in this case a scrap of wood, I pounce my brush to remove most of the paint, and then I do the same pouncing motion over the stencil, reloading my brush when needed, until the whole area is covered. Then I remove my stencil and tada, a lovely crisp pattern is left (or nearly crisp as it was a bit of a rush job). I use masking tape to hold my stencil to the pot. Low tack masking tape is best, but if you take a bit of high tack stuff and stick it o your clothing a few times first, it loses some of it's tack and then you have just made your own low tack version!

I will post it again once it is planted up.
I hope this inspires you to give some new life to an old pot.