The “Decor Refresh That’s So Powerful, It Looks Like a Renovation” Kitchen Makeover

updated Dec 19, 2019
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(Image credit: Christina Brown)

Every so often, someone sends in a project that 100% reaffirms my belief in the power of paint along with good diy and decorating skills. This is one of them. Take it away (and OMG, amazing job!) Christina…

(Image credit: Christina Brown)
(Image credit: Christina Brown)
(Image credit: Christina Brown)

All of the projects were DIY, and mostly cosmetic, the bigger projects being:

– Painting everything top to bottom – ceilings, walls, trim, hardware, etc… – $ a couple hundred dollars – we had to use many many coats of primer and paint to hide all of the crazy colors. We have bright white everywhere in the house – every single wall. When we moved in there was baby blue in the kitchen, grey and pink in the living room, a lavender wall running up the stairs, mustard in the bedroom. I just had to paint everything white so I couldn’t think about it anymore! I think it makes everything look more cohesive and if I ever change my mind and want color somewhere it’ll be easy to paint over the white.

– Floating whitewashed maple veneer floors over the existing linoleum (a requirement since the addition on the back of the kitchen has floors that curve downwards) – approximately $200-300 (we used inspiration from plywood flooring DIYs)

– Replacing the backsplash – $50 in tile. I taught myself how to re-tile on my mantle and in my vestibule so I had tools, grout, etc…leftover. I just had to buy the mini-subway tile. We did find that the wall behind the tile was a wreck and we had to rebuild it when we did demo. Not a huge setback, but a surprise.

-Building an industrial shelf for open storage – $75 in reclaimed pine wood (beautiful dredged pine boards…they were originally 10 feet long and they’re 2″ thick!) from Provenance Architecturals (a hidden Philly gem we LOVE) and $300 in pipe and flange (although our families only give us hardware store gift cards for holidays so we didn’t pay anything). I was actually planning on building a shelving unit that drilled through the boards for more support but the boards were so straight and beautiful that I designed the shelf around them.

Read more about the makeover on Christina’s blog: andchristina

Thanks, Christina!

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