See that look on my oldest daughter Jennifer’s face? That’s the unrehearsed snapshot moment she walked into my kitchen for the first time. When Roy and I purchased our 1st home in 37 years of marriage, (a unique story in itself), the kitchen was like a time warp back to the 70’s. I’m sure that wallpaper was all the rage back then but it was gonna have to go at some point. And the cupboards were some sort of attempted crackle mess from long ago. But hey, this was my very own house, and after years of rentals I loved every little pimple and wart it might have.Fast forward and my daughter makes yet another visit, this time with ulterior motives. She wants to give my kitchen a makeover. And now I’m more than ready for it.

We’re going to take you step by step through our process. We tried to be as frugal as possible and a good deal of it was just hard work.  But you’re going to be amazed at the end result. As you know I lean towards the whimsical and unusual in my home and my kitchen is no exception. We also have a budget bedroom makeover plan that would be helpful for any room if you want to take a look at that.

So follow along with us the next few weeks as we show you what we’ve done. We’ll also toss in a craft and decor item or two along the way that we did just for the room. Our goal is to show you that you can redo a room without spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

First, here’s what the kitchen looked like in all its original glory!

KITCHEN TRANSFORMATION STEP #1

Stripping Wallpaper : Painting Walls : Painting Cupboards

The wallpaper came off much easier than expected. You never know how that’s going to go and it can sometimes be a nightmare. But it came off in fairly large strips as you can see. All Jennifer did was soak it using warm water and a sponge and let it sit for a few minutes then pulled it off in huge chunks.  Any residue that was left came off with warm water and a sponge.

Next she worked on the cupboards. She removed all the door and drawer pulls and filled them in. Once dry she sanded them. Then she sanded the cupboards lightly.

She used a satin acrylic and gave it two coats.

Much better!

The insides of the cupboards were as nasty as the outside so those got cleaned out.

Then she gave them a coat of paint.

Here’s a reminder of the cupboards before.

And here’s an after view with new hardware for the drawers.

Now it was time to start on the walls.

Two coats were given. As you can tell from the first photo I posted it’s already like night and day.

A Little Something Special

My daughter did something for special me that I thought was so clever and touching. View this great keepsake idea here or by clicking below.