Home & Garden DIYing my way to victory with the help of tPF!

Coco Belle

Coco Belle

spreading love!
Jul 14, 2009
3,145
10
#1
Hi girls!
Those of you who've followed my threads a bit will know that DH & I bought our first home -- a 1977 3-bed, 1.5 bath duplex -- in July 2011.

Since we're extremely cheap :P we've decided to DIY as much as possible. The house is pretty much a blank slate, having been renovated extensively before being sold to us (plain white walls, almost no fixtures on the walls, etc) so we're very excited.

I'm going to use this thread to track our progress, get your feedback and glean some tips!

Special thanks to ecmf, without whom I probably wouldn't have started this thread!!
 
#2
The first project we want to tackle is the kitchen, since it's by far the most revolting room in the house.

It has these delicious "oak"-stained cabinets that make me want to scratch my eyes out:

kitchenredo001.jpg


See how the pulls are in the centre of the doors too? Aaagh.
 
#3
Here's a close-up of the horrendous state of these things:

kitchenredo008.jpg


The dark parts are stain, with extra kitchen grease as a sealant :smile: I had already scrubbed this one, but not sanded it yet.
 
#5
Then to start cleaning and sanding the doors...

kitchenredo006.jpg


...and filling in the stupid holes left by the hardware.

kitchenredo007.jpg


Next step is this weekend!!... cleaning the actual cabinet frame, and painting them a soft, clean white.
 
#6
In the meantime, I've busied myself with the other side of the room -- which had a Curtain of Incredible Hideousness that needed to be dealt with:

kitchenredo002.jpg


... as well as a v. boring, plain white paint on the walls, as you can see, and a huge big open space that I couldn't really utilize without some planning.
 
#7
In case you were wondering how that large space would be overcome, I took the precaution of marrying someone who is very good at assembling IKEA furniture. Behold DH:

kitchenredo011.jpg


That, my friends, is the STENSTORP kitchen island. It's a wonderful piece of furniture in case anyone's thinking of purchasing it. What's nice about it, is it's freestanding but still big enough to really give you some extra counter space. It also has a solid oak countertop which, after a good oiling-and-sanding session, warms up the room just beautifully.

kitchenredo012.jpg


We also got two bar chairs whose names escape me -- there's one in the picture. The shelves on the other side are actually stainless steel -- we hadn't removed the protective film yet.
 
#8
So once we had the island up and running, we switched out the Curtain of Hideousness for a plain white one -- I had wanted blinds, but sadly that window is a bit awkward and we'd need to have one custom made... and I couldn't be bothered frankly. This curtain is looking a bit froofy and meringue-like... it still needs to be shortened, and I'm going to put in some pressed box-pleats on the tops to make it look neater.

You can also see the fresh coat of paint -- it's a blue-grey with a hint of violet -- and a sparkly Xmas wreath that I randomly had to buy the other day. (Forgive the low quality, was trying to capture the true paint colour)

kitchenredo017.jpg
 
#11
Coco Belle said:
Hi girls!
Those of you who've followed my threads a bit will know that DH & I bought our first home -- a 1977 3-bed, 1.5 bath duplex -- in July 2011.

Since we're extremely cheap :P we've decided to DIY as much as possible. The house is pretty much a blank slate, having been renovated extensively before being sold to us (plain white walls, almost no fixtures on the walls, etc) so we're very excited.

I'm going to use this thread to track our progress, get your feedback and glean some tips!

Special thanks to ecmf, without whom I probably wouldn't have started this thread!!
Click to expand...


:yahoo::woohoo:

in here and I'm so excited for this thread. thank you coco belle for starting this. I will be here for your every post.
 
#12
ok first of all who in the world puts door knobs in the middle of the door?? how do you even open them??

your doing a great job coco and coco's dh. I love the new wall colour, the kitchen island and chairs. the white curtains look perfect and I can't wait to see what you do with the cabinet doors. I'm actually going to sand and re stain the front door next so it looks like we are onto the same ideas.
 
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