Over the last few weeks things have been very busy on the home front.  A few months ago we drew a stack of money back from the equity in our house and decided to do some things we had been waiting years to do.  I have got a lot to show you, but today it’s the kitchen.  We have taken over 4 years to complete the job but it’s finally done and we love it. 

You might remember that our kitchen facelift started way back in December 2004.  The kitchen started off like this - truly a vision in brown. 

Back in 2004 we bought a shiny new glass cooktop and double wall oven and installed new blue tiles as well as a new benchtop.  We also had a small cupboard and rangehood fitted in the space above the cooktop.  That all happened in the corner area you see above.  That area was looking good but there is another whole side to the kitchen opposite the wall oven that still had the horrible brown tiles and awful benchtop.  So we had one corner looking good and the rest still suffering in brown as we couldn’t afford to do it all at once.  That’s what happens when you stay home with the kids for all those years.

Due to the size of the benchtop it was going to cost a whole lot more than we could afford at the time, so we didn’t do anything more until April 2007 when we painted a light blue over all of those brown cupboards, inside and out.  (That’s the white undercoat in the photo below.)  This made a huge difference as it lightened the whole kitchen up dramatically and really, who can live with those fake wood cupboards? 

The kitchen was looking a lot better by now but unfortunately we ran out of money again and work stopped for another 2 years.  In January this year, we had the walls in all the living areas repainted a beautiful white - notice the horrible dirty-lemon yellow walls in the photo above.   With all the blue now in the kitchen, the yellow walls seemed to get more and more prominent and it was an awful clash.  Imagine if you will a similar light pink, light salmon and light peach on various other walls too - now all white white white.  One step closer.

So, fast forward to this year and we finally get to finish the kitchen!  You can see the new benchtop above - much wider than before too.  You can see the new cupboards and drawers built and fitted on the family room side of the kitchen bench to make use of wasted space, and so the bench is quite a bit wider than it used to be.  So love the extra storage space!

A few new accessories - above, a gorgeous fruit bowl that looks just amazing holding a bunch of bright green Granny Smiths.

Aluminium cupboard handles and kickboards, a few new shiny things to match, a shot of red.

Loving it.

Related Posts

• Wednesday, June 13, 2007 -- cute thrifty fun (4)
• Saturday, April 28, 2007 -- 28 months (2)
• Tuesday, June 20, 2006 -- evolution of a canvas (5)
• Monday, May 1, 2006 -- house (6)

tags: facelift, house, kitchen, redecorate, reno, renovation