A new kitchen!

A couple of weeks ago Stu took a week off work, partly to celebrate Becky's birthday but mostly to decorate the kitchen. It is a job which has been on our to do list for years but we kept putting it off as it was such a big job, it was never going to be something we could get done over a weekend.

Stu painted the walls using the Crown Walls & Ceilings Teal Matt Emulsion Paint. We bought it from Wilkos while it was on offer and only paid about £15 for it and it turns out we didn't need 5L of it. We only used half of the tin but it will come in handy if we need to repaint the walls in the future.

Everything I said about not needing new lights, I take back! It is has made such a difference to the kitchen. We went from old yellow lighting to bright white LED one's. They were a faff to fit as our house is old and the wiring isn't great but Stu got there in the end with the help of Ellie the trainee electrician and some YouTube videos. When I walk into the kitchen on a morning I put the light on and have to squint my eyes as it's so bright in there. It is going to take some getting used to!

The biggest job was painting the doors from the kitchen cupboards. We did four at a time to start with. Washing them down, giving them a couple of coats of emulsion paint and then the final coat using the Quick Dry Urban Grey Furniture Paint. It came in 750ml tins and I bought 3. We only used just under two so it means we have a spare to repaint if any chips or damage happens.

We got the first 4 cupboard doors painted and they were outside drying when I thought it had started raining, turns out it wasn't rain, it was hailstones! That put a stop to our work as there just wasn't enough room in the kitchen to carry on painting more of the doors until the next day.

We gave up doing 4 at a time and took all the doors off and Stu took them into the garage to paint where there was more room and thankfully the weather was better so they were put outside to dry!

The grey paint was a lot lighter than I expected and I wasn't too sure about it but I wanted the job done and didn't want to send it back and get a darker one but it turns out now it's on, has dried and done it looks darker than I thought. It's more of an off white colour, just about verging on grey. I am happy with it!

I don't know how it is possible but the kitchen feels bigger after a lick of paint! The only thing we have removed is the moulding of wood that went below the kitchen cupboards on the before picture above, that shouldn't make that much difference. I am putting it down to the fact it's much brighter in there, the darker brown colour has gone and there is of course the new lighting!

My favourite thing in the kitchen is the shelves. They're just there to look pretty, they are not strong enough to have much put on them as the walls are not great to take the weight but where the shelves are was just wasted space so we thought we might as do something with it. All the fake plants were just one's that I had elsewhere in the house or in storage in the garage.

I say it took us a week to do, Stu did most of it and he started on the Monday, did half a day Tuesday with it being Becky's birthday, worked all day Wednesday and most of Thursday, all day Friday and half a day on Saturday. He screwed the last doors on Sunday morning, then it was done and I just had the cleaning to do and there was a lot to clean. Dust, paint splatters and lots of random screws laying around. hehehe

I am so happy with the kitchen now. It looks more modern, my dad actually thought we had got new handles for the cupboards but they are the old one's. We just gave them a good scrub. They seem to go better with the new colour. It's brighter and feels bigger. It actually feels like we have got a whole new kitchen! 

What was the last big DIY project that you did in your home?