Kitchen: Before Pictures

When I posted on FB asking for people's ideas for cheap (free would be better) ways to update our kitchen, everyone asked for pics. So! Here there are. And here's a link to the Pinterest board where I'm keeping track of my ideas so far. We're not replacing the cabinetry at all, but I do plan to paint it-- I bought a priming "system" that's supposed to cover laminate so you can paint with regular latex on top. New hardware and a tile backsplash might possibly be in the budget, too, especially if we can find the materials at the Habitat ReStore.


And by the way, I'm not responsible for that moldy green color on the walls... It was here when we bought the house.





It's really this "dropped ceiling" lighting that has me down in the dumps.



It looks so dated and makes the kitchen feel cave-like. It seems like there ought to be some sort of easy fix to update this...






I'm thinking that perhaps something like this might be our best option... CHeap and easy-- no major construction changes.



I'm only worried about the deep soffats making the cabinets look so squatty. If you glance back up at the pics of mine above, you can see that there's not really room for nice nice trim along the top edge...

Any way. This is where we're at so far. Any ideas?

More about my bar

I promised a while back to post a more detailed description of our bar makeover and I'm here today to deliver on that.

I didn't take a ton of pictures, but I think I have enough to get the idea across. To re-cap, we started with this gem, that we picked up off the side of the road,



and that Jamie once "kimed":



Despite it's condition, I had dreams of turning it into this lovely thing:



Got that? Ok. Moving on...

The first order of business was to sturdy it up a bit. Lying by the side of the road and then being climbed on by an active toddler had kinda taken it's toll. We already had a nice piece of plywood in the garage-- almost the perfect size. Screwed onto the back-- instant stabalizer!



Here's where I wish I had taken more pics of the supplies we used, but I was kinda busy DOING stuff and forgot to take pictures of all of it. Basically we haunted all the local thrift shops for a week to find a table top. This failed so we went to Lowes and picked out a slab of hardwood plywood-- which up until that moment I had never heard of. We looked at our options for legs while we were there, but ohmygosh, they are PRICEY. We were looking at $15 to $20 EACH. Waaay outside my budget of $0.

So we schlepped over to the thrift store and bought this:



It's a headboard for a twin bed. It cost a grand total of $10 and if you look closely you will see that gives us TWO legs for the bar.

After a good sanding, and some shimming, we have:



And then J went to town on the details; including my wine rack and sliding shelf:



We also bought new hardware, but in the end went with the original dresser knobs-- they just looked better.

Another genius idea of J's that I wish I had more pics of is this "wrought iron" detail on the cabinet door

I think I mentioned in the post before that he bought a section of garden bed edging, hacksawed it to the proper size, spray-painted it to match the knobs and nailed it to the inside of the door! Genius!

Here's the finished product:

AND

AND!!

Last weekend I found the perfect bar stools! No pics yet, because they're still being "upcycled", but here's a sneak peek at my inspiration board:

Mud Kitchen: A Pinterest Success Story

I stayed up till almost midnight last night making this pinterest board in an attempt to reclaim our backyard from the fireants/weeds/junk/debris/bad mojo. Today we spent about $12 at Goodwill, an hour combing through my kitchen cabinets and the various and sundry toy boxes and we built THIS!
















We've got a few bricks destined to become a "stove" under that metal shelf.

Hopefully I"ll be able to show more completed "kid-friendly back-yard" projects soon!!


eta: this post has attracted waaaaay more spam than I'm prepared to delete (probably due to it's pinterest links) so I'm closing comments here Feel free to email me, though!