The kitchen... here's the plan...

After I bravely shared my less than beautiful kitchen with you last time, I'll now share my grand plan.

This is a case of working with what I've got, spending the least amount of money possible and creating the look of a £20,000 kitchen.

Okay, I'm kidding about that last part.
But let's take a look at a kitchen that costs £20,000.
Probably.

 

Here's my cunning plan. I shall take my flat melamine eighties door...

And add thin strips of timber...

see my pencil line?

...all around the edges, creating the look of a shaker door. 

The wood will be primed with super-primer. The melamine will be wiped with ESP...

...a product I have NEVER used! This is a very exciting prospect for me. Apparently it's not just a primer. Oh no. It makes the paint CHEMICALLY BOND to a non porous surface. Like magic. It's all very scientific I'm sure but let's just call it magic.

Then, I can paint. I've ordered Farrow and Balls Cornforth white. Okay, F&B paints are not cheap BUT, if you're getting the look of a £20,000 kitchen for under £200 then it's a bargain.

The colour was chosen for its ability to look great with the cooker and the splashback.
New handles and you'd never know what lies beneath.

For the rest of the room, I'd like to replace this...

with this...

but I have a sneaking suspicion I'm not going to pull that off whilst keeping my budget under £200.

We have concrete floors so gorgeous boards aren't going to happen either. Also wood would worry me as our washing machine has been known to flood the floor.

I think we might end up with this...

...pretend slate. And even that's going to bust the budget. Unless I pay with paypal generated by ebay sales,
then it's free. That's how I paid for the dining room floor.

The pantry door...

will become another one of these...

but I'm going to have to replace the enitire door architrave to make that work I think.

I'd love to replace the worktops but it's a huge expense and also involves replacing the sink. This will have to wait for another time. (sniff...)

I don't want to do spanktacular expensive tiling and then risk it being damaged or not fitting when we eventually replace the worktops so I have a few cheap options that would look good but could be replaced somewhere down the line. I'll keep those up my sleeve for now.

The lighting...

...totally sucks. I'd like to find a spotlight track that fits the exact footprint of a strip light but there don't seem to be any. Why ever not? People don't want to have to replaster a celing when they update their lighting. Someone needs to invent this. Fast.

The ugly radiator will be hidden behind a radiator cabinet. And I think that just about covers it.
 That little lot could take me until Christmas. So I can't sit here chatting about it all day. There's work to do!