We didn't spend much. Most of the dough went to the new sink, stove and faucet. The biggest thing to keep in mind is this is NOT a high-dollar fancy kitchen make-over. We're in one of those "transitional" neighborhoods. You know the kind I'm talking about. 4 houses in one direction and you've got older classic homes that are well cared for and 4 houses in the other direction everything seems to be falling down.
No new cabinets. Even just a project with new fronts and doors would have been of $15K. You've got to be kidding.
So here is quick summary of some of what we did ourselves.
Cabinets: The old doors were framed out using re-purposed 2" inch window blinds. Window blinds have holes for the strings to run through so I used a stencil and spackling paste to create a fleur-de-lis 3d effect to cover the holes.
All of the old chrome hardware was primed and painted black. Because we liked the existing back splash tile and it had a nice black tile stripe running through it we decided to play on that and went with and inexpensive painted treatment over our old laminate counter tops. It was cheap, and really isn't very durable. It seems to scratch easily so we use a soft disinfecting wipe rather than any kind of a scrubby sponge to clean it. But we do like the look of it.
We were lucky enough to pick up a brand spanking new JennAir cooktop off of Craigslist for just $200. Our plan is to spray the fridge black with some appliance spray paint.
Maybe someday we'll do a full blown re-model but for now this meets the Cheap & Easy Martha Stewart Alternative guidelines.
