Friday, June 26, 2009

Saving Money On Home Improvements

Here is the reason why I have been so MIA lately with blogging. It's done now and hopefully I can get back to my regular blogging...as long as the kids allow it :-) hehe.


So as most of you know from my previous post I have been remodeling my kitchen. It was definitely time for a change! We shopped around a bit looking at cabinets and realized just how expensive they are! We even checked out Ikea to see what their prices were like and while they were better, they were still over our budget for the moment. So I decided to take a chance and paint our existing cabinets. I was a little nervous about how they would come out, if the paint would chip, bubble or even apply evenly.



BEFORE:









AFTER:


(Please excuse the big box of tag sale items in the middle of the kitchen and the dishes in the sink, took this right after dinner! lol)







Cabinets: I went to Home Depot and grabbed some special primer made specifically for shiny surfaces called PrimeCoat 2. We took down all of the cabinet doors and I primed the inside and out of each door then the base of the cabinets. I only had to apply one coat of the primer then I applied 2 coats of a white semi-gloss paint on top of that. I did the first coat with a brush (you need to buy a very high quality brush so that you don't get the brush strokes) then the second coat of paint I used the brush and a foam roller. Then we changed up the hardware on the cabinets to a brushed nickel which I love! I was shocked by how much it cost to just buy new hardware though! Then rehung all the doors.


Counter Tops: One evening while we were shopping around at Lowes we came across their marked down clearanced paints and my Husband noticed a counter top paint for $3! We were both skeptical on how painting your counter tops would really work but our current counter tops were pink, so we figured even if it didn't come out good, it was worth a shot and we could always replace them. To my amazement they did come out good! I mean nothing that will last a life time, but a really great fix for the time being! $3 for new counters can't beat that!!


Ceiling: I purchased a ceiling paint and painted the ceilings a nice fresh crisp white.


Walls: I just went and purchased a semi-gloss paint and gave the walls two coats.


Flooring: We ended up keeping our current flooring for now. We weren't sure what we want to do yet and need to save up for whatever it is we end up doing.


Appliances: The Appliances are the only thing that we will really splurge on, we haven't purchased anything yet still waiting for a good sale, but I really want new appliances. We ended up checking out all the scratch and dent stores in our area first, but didn't think they were THAT marked down to be honest! You could get brand new ones for the same price with a sale and coupon, so we will wait a bit.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

NICE! That is GREAT! Happy for you. :)

Unknown said...

That looks great!! We looked at Ikea cabinets too (our house didn't have any cabinets when we moved in! - they just used a pantry forever!). We found that even though they were a little cheaper than ones we got at Lowe's - it wasn't that much of a difference - so we went with the Lowe's ones we liked.

Also with our appliances - we hit up one of those "Buy 2, get $100 back, buy 3, get $150, etc. etc." - since we needed a new stove, dishwasher, overhead microwave, and washer, it was a pretty good deal (some of the things were on sale as well as part of the promo). We got all lower end white appliances. The stove came with a small dent on the side (it's covered by a cabinet), so I called Lowe's and they knocked off another $50.

Unknown said...

You can try ordering the appliances online through ebates.com or mrrebate.com and get a % refunded on your purchase if you can find a free shipping deal it's totally worth it.

mom24onkeys said...

It looks great! Good job and I love the candles on the wall : )

Stephanie said...

Looks great!!