Tarting up the Kitchen, MSE Style (report/pics)

pinkteapot

We bought our house in August. Initially I wanted to fully replace the kitchen and utility room, but after using it for a few months I realised it wasn’t so bad. Our previous place had a more modern kitchen but our units, sinks, hob and oven were all in good condition, so it seemed a waste to rip them out.

The kitchen is at least six years old. The people who owned the house before us bought it in 2005 and it was the people before them who put the current kitchen in. There were some signs of it aging:

Cooker Hood and Grout


The cooker hood had yellowed with age and our grout throughout the kitchen and utility was grubby and wouldn't clean up. I’d even been over to the old style board and tried a bicarbonate of soda / tooth-paste mixture on them. Fixed with:

£50.96 Cooker hood from Wickes (£45.96 but we paid for Saturday delivery).
DIYing this was much easier than I'd expected. Cooker hoods are just a box with a wire that goes into a socket! Always figured they were much more complicated. It's fixed to the cupboard above with four screws!

£4.98 Unibond Grout Reviver
Poor review on the B&Q website but I think it’s brilliant stuff!

Light Fittings


Not too much to say about these. Spent £56.93 on them and paid our sparky mate £30 to fit them. Could have DIYed them but I’m not confident with electrics at all.

Kick-boards


£1.60 (for 100 on eBay) on what I have learned are called pozi screw covers

Paintwork
I wish I’d taken better before pictures. You’ll have to trust me that it was pretty battered, especially around the utility room door.



New colour won't be to everyone's taste but if anyone's interested it’s Dulux Buttermilk from their Kitchen+ range. To cover the old colours we used cheap B&Q white emulsion first so only needed two coats with the Dulux. Spent £52.37 in total on paint (we did already have gloss paint, radiator paint, brushes, roller, trays, dust sheets etc from previous DIYing or we would have had to buy these).

And by going for an MSE refresh I felt justified buying an over-priced Umbra coat-rack and cubby, on the basis that they match our units:



More to the point, we've used the money we were thinking about spending on a new kitchen to make a large mortgage over-payment, so now we own our kitchen, not HSBC. :money:

ukmaggie45

Hey Thank You PT for super photos. Well done! :beer: Definitely a huge improvement! :j So what's your next project?

Welsh_Totster

It's amazing what small inexpensive changes can do to the overall look of the room, it's a huge change as it now looks fresh, clean and new from being quite tired round the edges. Well done you, great job it looks fab!

pinkteapot

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

Hey Thank You PT for super photos. Well done! :beer: Definitely a huge improvement! :j So what's your next project?

Well, we moved in last August and so far have completely gutted and redone the cloakroom, bathroom and en-suite (professional job, not MSE, but my brother is a plumber so it was a little MSE ) and kitchen/utility. Might be time for a bit of a break.

Rest of the house just needs painting and new carpets. And the paintwork is generally in good condition (hallway is pretty battered so that will be first priority), just not in colours that I'd choose.

We are considering a fitted bedroom in the master bedroom. We're lacking storage. It's a four-bed house and we don't have mini Teapots yet. Each bedroom has a built-in wardrobe and we're using most of them with our over-spilling clothes. But this is probably a 5-10 year house so sinking a lot of £££ into a fitted bedroom is a bit of a commitment...

We're starting to think about mini Teapots so that might just be the next project. Mr Teapot doesn't like doing DIY as I do so I'm sure he'd much rather take this challenge on. :rotfl:

J_J_Carter

Very MSE! If it was me, I'd have changed the handles as well to complete the makeover.

pinkteapot

We could also have changed the plug sockets from white plastic ones to brushed chrome. But they cleaned up well so I wasn't too fussed.

Could also have got our plasterer friend to skim the artex ceiling but the whole house is artexed and I really don't mind it. Grew up with the same pattern on the ceilings so I don't notice it. The plasterer we know sits round here glaring at our ceilings.

Only finished yesterday with the gloss work and I love love love freshly painted rooms. Kitchen has three doors in it (to dining room, utility room, and a big pantry cupboard under the stairs) and they're so shiny and white.