Thursday, June 18, 2009

A kitchen makeover

My friend Nooria asked me if I couldn't post some pictures from my own home. I have had many homes and they have all been remodeling projects. And I have never had enough money to do everything I wanted, so I had to come up with my own solutions...

This is the kitchen makeover we did when we lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's 9 years ago, so I would have done it differently today, but all inn all I think we did a pretty good job.
We bought our dream home on the golf course, that needed a lot of work. Of course we had spent way too much money just buying it, so we didn't have a big budget for remodeling. We had to do most of the work ourselves. My least favorite room in the house was the kitchen. It was dark, dull, had old appliances, hideous wallpaper and a lowered ceiling. There were no windows. We chose to spend our money on newer appliances and granite tiles. The house was a rustic flagstone house, so I had to take that into consideration.

This is what we did:
I stripped the varnish off the kitchen cabinets. Then I painted them inside and outside with 3 coats of white paint. I put on a layer of grey glaze that I rubbed off and finished with a matt lacquer. It was a tremendous amount of work, but they looked good when we finished.

New wallpaper (I probably wouldn't have picked this one today, but okay...)


My best tip is: if you cannot afford granite-slab countertops, buy granite tiles. We put them down tightly with a minimum of grout both on the countertops as well as the backsplash. At the end of the counter we put a decorative stone tile to finish it off. It actually looked very good and many people didn't even notice that these were tiles not slab. I would definitely do this again.

The end result:


And here are a few pictures of my dining room before and after:


It's a little bit dark, but I have this wonderful diningroom that I inherited from my grandfather. It was built to match the woodbeams in his house in the 1930s. The art is from my parents. (I'm fortunate to have a summerhouse where I can play with a lighter New England style.)

Well, this was a little bit of personal information. I hope you enjoyed it!

7 comments:

  1. Wow your kitchen doesn't look like, at all, at the old one...Congrats!
    I'm your new follower! I'll get back to check your blog!

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  2. Oj så lekkert dere har det, fantastiske forandringer, dere har vært kjempe flinke!

    Jeg vil GJERNE være med i trekningen på bladet, så gøy!

    Ha en fin midtsommerhelg, her blir det bålbrenning, grilling av pølser og kos på terrassen!

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  3. To ord å si om dette..bææærrre lækkert.Men nå vil jeg også se ditt berømte hus i Hvitsten..Tar du utfordringen?
    Takk for hyggelig hilsen,og stakkars er det rart C.er helt i skyene om dagen..I dag våknet ho opp med den personlige mailen fra A.Rybak også...smelt sier nå jeg da....Sommerferien er reddet..hi.hi..Nyt helgen dere også,og hils kollegaen til "Bono"

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  4. Eh..nei det står ho for selv..gjennom facebook vøtt..Min tid er over der..jeg har mer enn nok å henge fingrene i blogglandia jeg..Send et hint når du legger ut bildene da:O)Imens krysser jeg fingrene for trekningen din.

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  5. Just found you and I'm thrilled! Love your lovely blog-home and this post was wonderful, you've done some great projects...we used granite tiles in our kitchen and love them~
    Happy blogging...
    Robin
    All Things Heart and Home

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  6. Thanks for the sweet comments. I have tried to find you Robin, but I guess you are not blogging (yet!).

    Have a wonderful summer!

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  7. Cooking your food up in a cramped, poorly designed kitchen can equate to everyday torture. If there's no room in your budget to makeover your failing kitchen, you might be able to win a kitchen makeover from any of several television shows that specialize in makeovers or sweepstakes that award home renovations to a lucky homeowner.

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Thanks for all comments. They make me smile!