My kitchen is a mess

EllieA_3

Help my kitchen is a mess.

I don’t have much money as a one income family, but my kitchen is an utter discrace im sure people would pretty much concider it a heath risk.

I’ve liven in the house for 10 years, and when we moved in the kichen was the worst room, it had beige units and a cream work top and tiles. It may have looked nice when it was fitted, but by the time we moved in everything looked a odd sort of brownish yellow.

We couldn’t afford to replace to scrubbed everything down as best I could put white tile paint over the tiles and painted all the cupboard fronts with a blue melamine paint. When it was finished it didn’t look too bad and we planned at somepoint to replace it. 10 years later it’s still there.

The walls and tiles have had a few coats of paint but now the tiles have had no many layers it’s starting to peel, the worktop is horrible it’s chipped and im sure it can’t be hygenic and the blue painted units are a mess.. the fronts have held up pretty well but the insides are now brownish yellow and look a mess no matter how hard you scrub they don’t come clean.

I would love a new kitchen but having priced them up they are a pipe dream, I’ve just worked really hard to get up out of debt and I plan to stay there so don’t want to buy it on credit. I have about £100 a month I can squirrel away.. but if I use it to save for a kitchen it’s not going to happen for at least 2 years even with the best will in the world.

Anyone got any idea’s?? perhaps do it in stages?? Or anything to clean it up while I do save for it?? .. im not very DIY practical so most of the hard work I’d need to hire someone for and that costs money.

WestonDave

Are the cupboard carcasses basically structurally sound - if they were half decent units to start with then despite the yellowing if they haven't had damp penetrating them, they are probably OK.

If they are sound then for a relatively small amount of cash you can re-front them - i.e. put new door/drawer fronts on them. If you measure the doors, hopefully most of them will be either 60cm or 50cm wide. If so have a look on the B&Q website and see how many you can match to their cheaper IT kitchens ranges - you can just buy the doors from there - you can replace a door and drawer front for as little as £15 (plus handles) in the right range and when they are on half price! The problem is that sometimes the hinge points are in the wrong place so you need a little bit of skill with a drill to move the internal holding bracket (that the hinge fits to) up or down to match. When we moved in we replaced our doors on a swamp green kitchen to B&Q Cherry Style Modern - it ain't fantastic but its liveable with. I'm currently in the process of changing one of the drawer boxes that was an original I fitted to a new front, to a new B&Q one because the kids snapped it. That's a bit more involved because the drawer runners need moving but its only a question of measuring carefully and drilling a few small holes for the screws.

Similarly you can get a 3 metre length of work top for as little as £35 - which if you have a straight kitchen worktop isn't that hard to cut to size and fit.

Re the chips in the worktop you can get something called ColorFill which is mainly designed for sealing joins in work tops but can be used to fill chips and other small areas of damage - costs about £7.50 for a tube in B&Q - if you look online you'll probably find it cheaper and a wider range of colours. Its just a question of spreading it on and getting it smooth - instructions provided!

The insides of the cupboards have just suffered from the white melamine discolouring over time - its unsighly but not particularly unhygienic - some plastic yellows over time especially the cheaper stuff. You could try getting some Fablon type film to put over it if you really wanted to smarten it up.

Painting tiles always ends in tears - if they are soundly fixed to the wall you might be able to tile over them for the time being - again not a hard job, you can often find cheap boxes of tiles as ends of runs in tile shops or DIY places. As long as you use something reasonably uniform to space them out (matchsticks are cheaper than the proper spacers!) by the time you've grouted it over a bit of unevenness doesn't really show. The other alternative is to see whether you can put something else over the tiles - without knowing how big an area we are talking its hard to suggest but you can get lengths of white UPVC (designed for soffits etc) that you could fix over the tiles and then seal the edges. You'd need to be a bit careful with something like this and not use it near any form of cooking device as it wouldn't cope with heat. At a push you might be able to get some stainless steel sheet panels from a catering supplier to do the same job - drill a few fixing holes through the tiles (with a tile drill bit) and then fix it over. Not cheap but this is the hardest bit to solve cheaply.

Anyway a few ideas to think about.

EllieA_3

Oh thanks.

The cupboards are structurally sound to be fair, the biggest problem is the discolouration in the whole kitchen everything that was once white/cream is now brownish/yellow it doesn’t look clean even just after I’ve scrubbed it.

If I replaced the doors could I paint the inside and outside of the cupboards with more cupboard paint if I bought a plain white one?? I’m guessing it would be ok as long as I was careful around where the doors open/closed?

The Worktop is in 3 pieces, one to the left of the oven, and to the right it go’s upto the wall then there is a separator and the third piece which is attached in an L-shape with the sink bit cut into it.

Will a worktop just lift out?? how is it attached to the cupboards? I assumed they where all one piece I didn’t realise you could replace them separately??

I wouldn’t trust myself with a jigsaw to cut a hole for the sink but if it’s not a huge job if I bought the worktop I assume it wouldn’t be that expensive to hire someone to fit it? Tbh I think the worktop had to be the priority as that is the bit that’s unhygienic due to the chips and scuffs.

covlass

Have a look at ikea if you have one by you they do a plain white door starting from £5 they also have a very nice wooden effect worktop from £25

Check e bay make a list of what units you have so if you see a listing you can quickly check to see if they have the correct units, we did this and got a stunning kitchen for peanuts for my Mother in law old kitchen came out new one went in there was a few spare units which we didnt use.

spirit

On the other hand, hint mercilessly to anyone in your family who'll listen that you'd love a 60 minute makeover :money:

Kavajo

You might be able to get a good secondhand kitchen for free. People usually get a skip and throw away their old kitchen when getting a new one. If you know someone getting a new kitchen or a tradesman, no harm in asking if you could have the units, doors and appliances. I've seen them being given away on Freecycle too, try a Wanted post. You would need to think how the units could be made to fit in your own kitchen, and then you would only need to buy worktops, plinth, and the cost of a fitter for the bits you can't do yourself. You could break the job into stages once the units & appliances are in place. You could do the tiles after, then put a lino or laminate floor down, get undercounter lights etc. If you need appliances, look out for giveaways or buy secondhand to keep costs to a minimum. I'm getting a relative's perfectly good old kitchen in a few weeks time and an offcut of lino for the (small) floor. I got a super Miele dishwasher for £40 from Gumtree, so just looking out for some bargain worktop and tiles then ready to go with a 'worn-once' kitchen which will cost a few hundred at most.

keystone

WestonDave wrote: »

Painting tiles always ends in tears - if they are soundly fixed to the wall you might be able to tile over them for the time being - again not a hard job, you can often find cheap boxes of tiles as ends of runs in tile shops or DIY places.

They already have several layers on paint on them - so says the OP. Tiling over that would be madness TBH.

Cheers

clairehi

I painted some tiles once and then regretted it as it just looked a mess. (It was one of those Changing Rooms fads about 10 years ago wasnt it!)

However I was able to peel off the paint afterwards as the tile primer that I had used was basically PVA glue. the paint came off without too much trouble, it just peeled away from the tiles, although a bit time consuming. A wallpaper scraper would help.

there was a bit of paint on the grouting but I managed to scrape out and regrout those areas.

OP is it worth seeing if you can get the tile paint off. even though you dont like the original tiles at least it will look tidier and more hygienic.

A word of warning - if you do decide to replace the worktops you may break a few tiles in the process. Personally I wouldnt bother attempting to retile until you redo the whole kitchen, if that is on the cards. the difficult part with replacing the worktop will be a. any joins at corners and b. the sink cutout as you need the right tools. I therefore got a kitchen company to supply and fit a new worktop sink and taps which was a few £100 - but we could not have DIYed.

gavcradd

I've put this on another post, but I'm chucking away a load of cupboard doors (with handles) and the wall cupboards as well - I've just redone our kitchen completely. Nothing wrong with them, just couldn't get any new ones to match the extra cupboards I've put in.

If you want them, PM me - I'm in Uttoxeter, anywhere near?

ldevlin

if you are going to change the doors only make sure you go for a similar colour again or else you will need to change the cornice, pelmet, end panels and cabinet edging tape as well, which could run into a bigger job than you thought or else it will end up looking like a dogs dinner, good luck

[Deleted User]

Can you go for a freestanding kitchen?

We had an issue with lots of windows in the kitchen and a large fireplace plus two doorways and so it would have been hard to put in a fitted kitchen and so we went freestanding.

We have a walk-in larder and for worktops we bought some IKEA freestanding, stainless steel worktops. We only bought them temporarily (the kitchen in our house only had a sink when we moved in) but they have been so great we have decided to keep them (about £60 each). We have tiled the walls behind down to the floor (cheap white tiles) and have a few cheap secondhand freestanding cupboards for storage. The whole lot worked out quite cheap and a really good kitchen. Before the walk-in larder was built we bought two old secondhand large wooden cupboards for storage and used these for many years.