The time in between moving day and the start of renovating was very useful for deciding what, exactly, we were going to do. My first inclination is to go for the total gut and rehab. But that's an expensive solution and not really environmentally friendly!
Instead, we thought about what we could live with and what we really wanted to change. The pine cabinets had to be painted over. For some reason, I can live with inconvenient, but not ugly.
The other problem we had was that the kitchen only actually took up half the room. It's a big space, but it wasn't being fully used.
The floor, though also ugly and, dangerously, at two levels,was beyond our budget to fix. We warn all newcomers and anyone who's had a knee replacement to be careful.
The dark green ceramic tile was also not a favourite. But it's solid (why is it the ugly stuff always seems to last longer?), so we decided to keep it. Except on the island. My husband needed a wooden countertop and we really wanted one that was actually centred on the island. The counter that was there was weirdly off-centre, adding to the hazard of the two-level floor.
Out came the Zinsser 123 (high-adhesion primer). I mixed up a batch of green-ish paint from leftovers I found in the basement. This, I hoped, would tone down the green of the tiles. It didn't turn them white, but I like the colours I came up with.
Then I brought out some of my favourite vintage finds.
That and a quick trip to IKEA for the floating shelves, a light fixture and the wooden counter top and we were done!
All that on a budget of just under a thousand dollars!
Here it is, set up for a party. I'll have more pictures tomorrow.
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