Happy Friday: Frugal Kitchen Makeover
Sent from reader, Erin:
I was never really satisfied with my kitchen – it was very outdated but I never had the funds to do everything I wanted – cabinets, new counter top, replacement of the old silver sink. I had seen the Countertop Kits at Walmart but I realized by the time I bought enough kits that it would be about the same as buying the countertop itself. I was looking around online and saw that another woman had the same dilemma as me but she made her own “Countertop Kit.” So I did the same! I bought 4 acrylic paints at Walmart that I really liked the color of (they were $0.50 a piece!). I also used tintable primer and poly acrylic and a cheap sea sponge and of course Dollar Tree paint brushes! I spent around $30.
I also reworked my plan and figured I could do something with my cabinets! I spray painted them black and then I sanded the edges because I like the primitive look. Afterward, I applied the same poly acrylic (from the same quart jar). After you apply it to spray paint, it transforms the look and doesn’t even look like paint anymore – my cabinets look like real cabinets! I spent around $15 on this project.
I then bought wall paint at Lowe’s (they didn’t have the base I needed so they discounted what they did have and I painted my whole kitchen and dining room for close to $30!) and thanks to a gift from my In-laws, I got my sink as well! I did a whole kitchen transformation and painted my dining room as well for around $75!!! To me that’s a super hip bargain and I’m very proud of it! 🙂
HAPPY FRIDAY! 😀
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Great job woman!
Outstanding job Erin, I am in awe at how talented some people are, you need to have your own HGTV show!!
Hahaha I don’t know about that but thank you 🙂 everyone is being so kind and supportive! I didn’t want to share for the compliments I just wanted to pass along the idea in hopes that someone else could possibly benefit and be able to do the things they may want while on a tight budget
Is there a technique. My husband and I would like to do this until we can afford to get quartz counter top and new cabinets. Can you share the link were you learned this from? You can email me at aleshiaj77@gmail.com
I would also love a tutorial or website ect..Thanks! Faithanne_thompson@yahoo.com
Wow! 🙂
Erin, you did a super great job! Wow, what a great transformation! I would be very proud of myself if I were you.
Amazing! I wish I had your talent. 🙂
Wow – looks amazing! ::high five::
Can I adopt you Erin? Incredibly creative job!!!
Lol I doubt my husband would put me up for adoption! he and our 3 month old are rather attached lol 🙂
Awesome job and I love the cabinet hardware as well!
Wow! I can not stop staring at the picture. What a great job!
Great Job Erin. I love it.
Wow!!!! Awesome job 👍
Do you happen to have a link for a step by step process? Abd the products you used? I love this!
I combined a couple of ideas and just kind of jumped in blindly lol I provided some tutorials step by step of what I did in two of the earlier comments with the products and brands I used as well 🙂
how did you do the countertops?
Check the two earlier comments near the top for the two step by step tutorials I posted 🙂 hope they help 🙂
will you please come to mine? I have hated my kitchen for 13 years and i’ll probably hate it for 40 more
I sooo Love it! You’ve inspired me to finally do my cabinets. I need color ideas though for what would go great with black counter tops? I love yours though. I wish my countertops were lighter.
White would look good. I’d look at pinterest for “black countertop” and then see what cabinet colors you like best with them in the pictures.
I think a tannish color would look nice as well 🙂 just depends on your style decor and taste 🙂 good advice about searching for black counter top and checking out the cabinets! I get ideas that way 🙂 you could also find a magazine that fits the decor you like and glean ideas 🙂
Beautiful! What is on top of the stove? Looks like an extra workspace. . . would love details!
It’s a noodle board 🙂 used in the old days and very popular in antique primitive and colonial decorating. You can buy them online even on eBay but my father in law made mine and I stained it 🙂 they also make them to go over your sink (the extra space is especially handy around the holidays)
Great job my dear friend!!! Wish i could also take something like this
Amazing! Call Better Homes and Gardens! One of those magazines should be interested.
That is really, really great job! And around the time i am fighting myslef with bathroom makeover that i do not really want to spend too much $$$ on! Thanks for inspiration!
I went looking for the tutorial that she references. This looks very similar to her countertop and they also use acrylic paints. I hope this helps everyone: https://paintformicacountertops.com/
Wait, that one was $100+. This one says $25. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXmccWGSrio
Here’s the site that gave me inspiration 🙂 https://prettylilposies.blogspot.com/2010/11/250-kitchen-makeover-with-20-granite.html?m=1
I love their black appliances! I’ve always wanted black appliances and I’ve seen tutorials to paint them as well but that scares me a little bit lol my friends dad paints cars for a living and he sprayed her fridge black for her with appliance paint and it looks amazing! But I’m not a professional and painting my stove sounds terrifying lol
Erin it looks amazing! You are a super talented woman with courage! I would be afraid of messing up, but it looks fantastic!
I love it! Good job Erin! Anyone out there know a good DIY for a bathtub?
I’m not sure if your talking about the inside as well cuz I’m not sure what you could do with that but as far as the outside wall I seen a tutorial where they got those faux stones with sticky backs that you grout together from lowes and they put it on the front wall of the tub. After the doors where up or you moved the shower curtain up to show off the bottom more it looked great! I was thinking of doing this but hadn’t really decided yet 🙂 just an idea!
Omg I LOVE THIS!!!! This is so awesome!!!! You are amazing!!! Now if I can only convince the boyfriend to let me do something like this…..
One of the ways I talked my husband into it was that as long as you don’t seal It with the poly acrylic yet and you don’t think you will like it after you do the paint part you could just use paint thinner to get it off 🙂 then your counters would b back to normal lol after the poly acrylic I’m not sure what u could do to get it off but as long as you don’t do that step you’re safe to see if you like it first 🙂
Can you please describe to me in detail how you did this? Please I beg you:)
I outlined my process step by step in above and below comments even the colors I used! Hope you can find them and that they help! Thanks 🙂
you. go. girl. the resourcefulness is BRILLIANT.
This looks amazing! You say you spray painted the cabinets. I am moving into a new house and the cabinets are almost identical to what yours were. (I want to do mine white.) My question is, how did you spray paint the the cabinets themselves? Being inside and the possibility of the paint going all over everything else, that’s impressive. How did you do it? (You may have answered already, but I didn’t see in the 100+ posts you already have. Lol)
Hi! I was very daring and I thought my father in law was gonna kill me lol but I made sure my room was well ventilated and I had a tower fan as well blowing out my open door to rid the fumes- but anyway I used a bunch of plastic drop clothes and lots and lots of taping off. I also used some card board as shields 🙂 but I didn’t sand for prep at all I just spray painted then I did sand some of the edges for decoration purposes for a weathered look. After I applied a thin coat of polyacrylic with a foam brush because I didn’t want it too glossy. It goes on milky looking and dries clear. I sped up drying with a hair dryer and hung the doors back up and was finished 🙂 the polyacrylic does something to the spray paint and completely changes it. A lot of people think eww spray paint and associate it with cheap trashy or cheesy but there’s a lot of neat things to do to make it professional looking and lots of tips online 🙂 I didn’t actually use an online tutorial for my cabinets I seen a dresser makeover with the same concept and figured it would work on cabinets as well since wood is wood lol
Did you rent a sprayer?
I didn’t rent a sprayer. I will do exactly what you did. I can’t wait to give this kitchen a makeover! Thank you for sharing your work! 🙂
Lol must be another Erin that one wasn’t me lol but to answer the other Erin – nope I didn’t rent a sprayer I just used actual cans of spray paint 🙂
That looks awesome! I also painted my countertops several years ago. I sort of outlined the steps in the comments section:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36415279@N00/423191297/in/set-72157601139215688
Wow looks great! I like the colors you chose as well 🙂 what’s so neat about painting your counter tops is you can choose any color combo you want! Your not limited to the stores options you can really customize with your kitchen 🙂
Awesome Erin! Thank you so much and all who posted the pther links. Your before pic is exactly what my kitchen looks like now. and everyone seems to have expensive advice. I am trying this.
Awesome transformation and I love your prim decor…my decor is the same…love the prim look…I am looking to paint my cabinets within the next couple of weeks
My mother in law spray painted hers and did a dark brown (she does prim decor as well) and it looks equally as good! There’s a lot of great prim color options 🙂 my walls are a color called molasses from lowes it’s an amazing prim color 🙂
Great job! I’d like to know what the name of the paint colors you used bc I like yours exactly! Also, how much counter and cabinets do you have so I can tell if if need more. My kitchen is pretty small……
Thanks! I have 13 top cabinets and the underneath ones as well and I really don’t have a lot of counter space. the two pictures she showed are all I have except for on the other side of my stove I have a space about 2 1/2 foot long. I’m wanting to say I used around 8-10 or so cans (maybe less) of spray paint. It was just the .97 cans from Walmart. It depends on how heavy you spray. I used the same quart can of poly acrylic for both cabinets and counters and I bought a quart of the tintable primer (color was called Dapper tan from Walmart) and I didn’t use all of it. I also used these acrylic craft brand and color paints from Walmart as well.
Folk art- licorice
Folk art- coffee latte
Apple barrel- khaki
Apple barrel- burnt umber
I also took my tintable primer and put a little of that on with a sponge too. I just kept playing with the colors til I found what I liked. You can’t really mess up just keep on sponging lol I used less of the khaki than anything tho.
Wow Erin! I would be thrilled to have someone re-do my kitchen like this for a few hundred dollars. This would make a great side job. Love how you thought outside of the box to get the results you wanted. Very resourceful!
Aww thanks! I love trying new things lol I’m also very experimental and love to do things to my home to make it look better 🙂
I’m thinking of doing my cabinets with chalk paint and sealing it with poly acrylic. I’ve done several pieces with the chalk paint and I LOVE that stuff! It’s so easy. Mine is easy to make, equal parts of primer, paint, and drywall spackling (mix a tiny bit of water in the spackling to make it more liquid and easier to mix up).
But I’m wondering, how safe is the countertop stuff? I do a LOT of food prep on my countertops, like rolling out biscuits, pie crusts, salad prep, etc. I’m a bit hesitant to put just anything on my counters… Anyone have any advice with this?
Found this info hope it helps: most acrylic finishing polymers are “food-safe” once fully cured. The potential problem comes in when traces of unreacted monomer remain in the “fully-cured” polymer. While I have never heard of toxicity issues related to a fully cured polymer (of any type), residual monomer, or degradation products from the fully cured polymer* can be suspect. Said another way, the monomer(s) that goes into making a polymer can be quite toxic, but once the polymer is formed and allowed to FULLY cure, the liklihood of a problem from the polymer per se is small. Now, the addition of an additive package (driers, surfactants, accelerators etc.) to the monomer mix changes things and all bets are off. Personally, while I am generally cautious regarding chemical toxicity issues, I think you should be OK.
* The degradation products of some polymers (degradable sutures/coatings, for example) can elicit a very mild inflammatory response (due to local low pH issues) that the body can tolerate very well.