Hi everyone,The door fittings came from ebay, ex MFI stock, and by buying in bulk, we were able to get them very inexpensively compared to standard DIY store prices.
Other progress is that we have obtained a full bathroom suite from Freecycle, white and fairly modern, completely free. This will be our next project as soon as money allows, possibly late Autumn, as our current suite is avocado green. It has saved us at least £200 on the main fittings, so we'll now keep an eye out for tiles at our local stores that are not too expensive. Of course if something suitable crops up on Freecycle that would be amazing too!
We have obtained a bathroom mirrored single cabinet for free from a house that was gutting their bathroom, it was in fairly poor condition inside but after a wash was acceptable. I then covered the shelves with some nice Cath Kidston paper and for now it's certainly much better than it was, and better than having nowhere to put things in! This would have cost at least £15.
Left you can see our crab apples have started to blush - we have no idea what to do with them! They are edible so hubby has started to take them to work, saving us around £1.50 per week, but I will look online for recipes as to what we can make.
Any recommendations for recipes, and indeed care of a crab apple tree? We are learning so much this year, it's hard to keep up with ourselves!
It looks amazing and I can only hope for such a result - only thing is I worry about the cost of paint and varnish - I guess it may cost around £30 but then at least we will have something we love - right now the pine colour is not my favourite!
Thanks for reading and do post your thoughts and comments, I will post another update very soon with hopefully a finished kitchen!
13 comments:
Hi there,
Great to see you update on how you're getting on - I'm so jealous of those apples - they look so good.
We bought a house too, kind of suddenly I suppose. We had been saving for a long time and were planning to buy something older which needed a bit of revovation, but we realised we would need about 2 more years of saving for it. The rental was so much up here that it worked out cheaper for us to get a smaller new build house of plan so we did it.
It was a bit of a change of plan but it's not costing us much more than the rental and at least we have our own place. We're a lot happier in it and I can wait another 3 years until we can manage our renovation project!
Jade
The kitchen is looking excellent!
The sole use for crab apples is to buy a weaner pig and feed it the apples :O)
Hi Jade,
Wow that's excellent new - congratulations! It's nice to have somewhere isn't it? After renting for so long, I sometimes forget that if the dishwasher goes now *we* have to fix it! Luckily they left us all the white goods so we did not have to get those again. Fingers crossed you get your rennovation project - you can spend the next 3 years doing mood boards! That's what I am doing right now... good fun!
Jane, that's a shame - though we've eaten them and find them ok, they're sweet but just smaller - maybe they're not crab apples???
wow! you've made that kitchen look wonderful! thanks for sharing, it's very inspirational.
i'm currently decorating my entire house, motivation flagging a bit.
can anyone here share a good way to renovate my kitchen cupboard doors please? i'm thinking of painting them, but don't know what's a good paint for cupboard doors. i'm going to buy new handles, but i really want to cover-up the naff wood effect.
they're currently some sort of wood-effect, probably melamine or chipboard underneath that.
thx for all suggestions
Hi Mhairi, thanks for your lovely comment. If you are decorating your entire house, wow that's a labour of love indeed!
As to your painting the kitchen cupboards, I would recommend a base coat then a suitable paint for MDF,probably same as standard wood paint once you have a base. Definately get a wipe down finish. We used the Crown cupboard paint in 'champagne' finish which is easy to wipe clean as it has some vinyl in it, but I think if you do a base first regardless, it will give you a better finish. Try asking at your local DIY centre, hopefully someone over the age of 18 that is experienced!
The cupboard makeover type paint I have used would prob be ok for Melamine / MDF etc overall - I have an MDF corner unit in the kitchen which came out fine with this paint and only needs 2/3 coats whereas the wood needed 3/4.
Feel free to ask away here, very interested in what other people are up to and what tips we can all share!
Really love the transformation of your kitchen it looks so fresh and light now ☺
Thanks so much Debbie, it's coming along nicely! I am doing two more cupboards right now, just having a coffee break... I am going to get some Laura Ashley or similar wallpaper to put at the back of the glass cupboards you can see on the top right of the image. Then just have to work out how to (carefully) paint the wood around the glass! Have a great weekend x
Thanks so much for the paint suggestions, they were very helpful.
I'm selling the house to emigrate, so decorating is a labour of love of getting to New Zealand, rather than a labour of love of decorating :-)
dont know much about crab apples as such hun but we have three apple trees and we were advised to get grease bands (fm a garden centre_ and put them around the trunk of the tree - we did it around the big cooking apple tree and it stops insects going to them and nibbling away and makes the apples much much better - worth doing - would imagine it will apply to all apple trees - looking for recipes myself for the cookers
Elaine x
Hi Elaine thanks for dropping by! That sounds like a fab idea as we definately don't want insects enjoying the apples instead of us - I will check it out!
For normal cooking apples I guess make batches of cooking sauce that you can enjoy this winter with roast pork and also to make desserts... yummy!
HI...your kitchen has totally inspired me to do ours...we have painted it a beautiful white and got a new floor down too..i had a mass clear out and slimmed down on the accessories and just found a few shabby chic bits in junks shops and hey presto my kitchen looks lovely,fresh and vintage and only cost about £30 total...i am now doing our porch area..hope it looks as good ...
sara
Hi Sara thanks for dropping by - wow that's a great price for a new look kitchen! Sounds lovely and it's always nice to come across finds in charity shops, I find it very satisfying!
I am in process of finishing 2 kitchen cabinet doors, will post pics here soon, I used Laura Ashley wallpaper bought on ebay to put at the back of the cabinets, lightens up the cabinets so much now they are painted cream.
Good luck with the porch area, I am sure it will look lovely!
Hi,
Apple jam (great with a bit of cinnamon), apple sauce, apple pies also freeze nicely, also if you mix a bit of the apple and cinnamon jam, with cream you can make a really nice different apple ice-cream for next time you are intertaining.
Good luck!
XX,
Teresa
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