Oh, man, wait until you see this rad kitchen makeover from my friend Shannon! Not only is she a kick-ass blogger, she's also an incredibly talented artist and photographer. Yeah, I'd be super-jealous if she wasn't so damned sweet. :)
When Dana kindly asked little ol' me to guest blog on What the Frock while she was away on her honeymoon adventures, I will admit, I think I peed a little. I was super flattered because I am constantly inspired by her ambition to post not only once, but several times a day. Her content is always captivating, witty and full of great tips and tricks, so to be able to contribute makes me a very happy lady. I am not very fashionable, so instead of offering my advice on how to wear black tights all summer without being mistaken for Wednesday Addams, I will be sharing how to give your kitchen a quick makeover for under $100.
As you can see on the left, our kitchen started off pretty grim when my boyfriend and I moved into our house a little over two months ago. First to go was the cigarette smoke-stained bunny wallpaper, which was replaced by a lovely shade of Lagoon by Martha Stewart. The old floor tile felt dirty on our feet and no matter how many times we mopped it, it still remained a lovely shade of yellow-ish blue. Not cute. We decided to shop around for affordable peel and stick, vinyl tiles in black and white. We were surprised when we found out both Home Depot and Lowe's did not sell simple black and white, vinyl stick-on tiles. I called several tile distributors in the area and got a lot of "Ha, are you serious? I haven't seen a checkerboard floor since the 80's" responses. Uhh, obviously these people don't browse Pinterest on a regular basis.
I ended up finding a wholesale tile distributor in New Jersey called Mazer Wholesale, where they sell packs of 20 white or black tiles for $7/piece with a 5-year warranty. Yes, please! Overall, we were able to give our kitchen a brand new look for under $100 in just one weekend, so I think it was definitely worth it. The tiles arrived just two days after my order was placed, so I couldn't have been more happy with the shopping experience. Plus, the owner even posted a black & white checkerboard tutorial video on YouTube explaining how to install the tiles easily.
Anyway, back to the old floors! This is what our kitchen looked like when we had our initial walk through of the home. Don't get me started on the previous owner's depressing office chairs in their kitchen nook.
Here's how the floors look now, with our bright blue walls and IKEA storage area (we had to be clever about creating more counter space, we are on a budget people!). I really like peeking out to our other rooms and seeing the transition of colors. I definitely think the downstairs feels a lot more like "us" now. I am excited to do the same to our upstairs, which for the most part, hasn't been touched since we moved in (eep!).
The first thing we did was decide how we wanted to install the tiles on our floor. We were trying to figure out if we wanted to lay them diagonally or straight. We ended up choosing the diagonal route (left), which took a lot longer than it would have if we were working with straight lines, but I think it makes the room look wider. We began laying the tiles from the front, righthand corner and placed all of the whole tiles.
Once we finished sticking all of the whole pieces to the floor, we had to start cutting out patterns to place the pieces which were touching the walls. It was incredibly difficult to cut pieces around vents, quarter round and door frames, but with some patience were were able to knock it out by Sunday afternoon. We both definitely had our fair share of dramatically flopping on the floor out of pure exhaustion and having sticky finger syndrome for 48 hours, but it wasn't anything Goo Gone couldn't help fix.
Our vents were the most frightening shade of brown I had ever seen (sorry for the lack of a "before" photo), so I sprayed them with black RustOleum. It's surprising how much of a difference the black vents make in the room—everything looks a lot more clean and polished now.
Here's a view from our dining room, where you can see one example of the flashing (is that what it's called?) in the doorway, which my lad replaced throughout the kitchen and mudroom.
I really like the retro vibe of the kitchen and although it still needs some TLC (painting the door white, touching up the white in the mudroom, hanging airy curtains), I think it suits our personalities perfectly.
All in all, I think this is one of those budget-friendly projects which can really makeover the entire look of a room in just a day or two. Plus, we've come pretty darn close to resembling the inspiration photo I "pinned" on Pinterest (one of my new favorite websites!) a while back:
Has anyone else ever tackled a quick, affordable, DIY kitchen makeover? If so, how did it go (comment with photos if you have them!)?
