So the first thing we did was move in the appliances. We were broke new homeowners so we went cheap. Dirt cheap. In fact our fridge was free. $AVINGS TIP: Check with relatives for unused appliances, particularly microwaves and fridges. Make sure they are in operating condition, our fridge was my husband's grandmother's kitchen refrigerator so we knew it worked. It might not have been a spring chicken but it would hold us for the time being. $AVINGS TIP: Check off-brand appliance stores for scratch and dent/clearanced furniture. You would be surprised to see the savings there. Other places you can find appliances: auctions, Salvation Army/Goodwill, and garage/yard sales. Our stove came from the "clearanced/scratch-and-dent" section of an off-brand store. It wasn't a 100% what I was looking for (it being gas and me used to electric), but it fit in the kitchen and we needed to have a stove so we got it. Our microwave was our biggest acquisition, cost-wise. We had to special order it to go up on the wall since we had virtually no counter-space as it was. So we went with one with a vent under it for above the stove. It was the only brand new, special order item we had in our kitchen, so it was our pride-and-joy.
Next we painted and put up cupboards. If you remember from Part I, taupe-brown was not an option. So we went with a bright "Hawkeye" yellow to enliven the kitchen. And put a similar-colored damask-patterned DIY curtains & tiebacks around the windows (and on the window on the back door too). We actually got the fabric from our local fabric store and (my mother-in-law) sewed us up the curtains right quick and in a hurry.
Our kitchen table was the last thing we got during this remodel. You can kind of see it up there, above left, on the right side and to the left here. It was not a very pretty color, and pretty dated. But its a massive table that we got a deal on. We got it at an auction and it actually came with not one, not two but six leafs for the center. Whatever the table was coated with before actually turned white when a hot plate was set on it. No, not a pan, just a plate. So we wanted to get that out and covered up. So we took it all apart, sanded it down, when we sanded off the yellowish stain it revealed what looked to be cedar. We would have been okay with a cedar table, but over sanding in one spot (top left corner in the bottom picture of the sanded vs. unsanded) revealed that it wasn't cedar but most likely pine. So we simply decided to match it with the cupboards (the original plan) and painted black on it. Now, if you do this do several coats of polyurethane on the paint to keep it from peeling and to make it an easy surface to clean. We had already recovered the cushions of the chairs (using scissors,the same fabric from the curtains, and every DIY'ers dream tool, a staple gun). We then took glossy black spray paint and spray painted the chairs to match the table. Now you can use a roller but our chairs have a lattice-style back, and somewhat decorative legs, to them so it would have been extremely time consuming to do it by hand. The spray paint worked just as fine. We then reassembled the table and....OooP! You'll just have to wait until Part III to see what it looks like! Next time on Making Our Own Dream Home, the base cabinets, new ceiling and light, and more paint! And then the finale: What it looks like now!
See you next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment