Update in the kitchen

Twelve months ago we bought an old home in the city with our son. This was his first step into the world of real estate. He had us travel to the city on many occasions to look at houses, most of which were too expensive, too ugly or just not right for him. Finally we found this cute (he hates me calling it that!!) little house in our price range. We leased it out for 6 months so he was able to get used to mortgage repayments etc then he and his fiance moved in in March. You may have read my post on our first afternoon in the house here.  Well, finally I had a few days spare so we painted the kitchen cupboards. My son had already painted the walls in three rooms. We would love a new kitchen but at the moment that is out of the question so paint was the next best thing.We scrubbed, primed and painted like our life depended on it!! After two days we were finished and we were exhausted.  The difference is amazing. We had plans to cover the old cream tiles with bead boarding but we have just found out that it is not available in Australia! EEk! That has really upset our plans. As this makeover is just for a couple of years until we can put in a new kitchen we didn’t want to spend too much money but it now looks as though we will have to replace the tiles. Not what we had planned but I guess you have to do what you have to do!!





As you can see, the cupboards were in very good condition but very dated. 


Layers and layers of crisp white paint!




We are all so in love with this new look but now need to decide whether to paint the existing tiles along the sink side and add some to the opposite side or rip off those on the sink side and replace the whole lot. We haven’t done any tiling before but this might be the time to start!! Next on the list is to replace the tile floor with flating floorboards. What a difference that will make!
                               Suzy

FOOTNOTE: I have been asked if I removed the doors to the cupboards.....we cheated and left them on. We had three days to complete them and the first was a right off because my son came down with gastro (he is a paramedic and this is sometimes part of the job!!!) so we did nothing the first day as I was not game to go near. For two days we painted flat out - two coats of primer and one coat of low sheen but this wasn't 'finished' enough so we gave them all a coat of semi-gloss! We started off painting over the hinges but after the primer decided they looked tacky so we chipped them all off - time consuming but really worth it as it looks so much better. We sent my son's fiancé to buy the handles on her way home from work the first day. At 5.30 on the second day my son fitted the new hardware while I had a major cleanup...job done!!

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Drama filled day!!

We had the most beautiful engagement party on Saturday night for our son and his fiance and I have some lovely pictures to share which I thought would happen today but no……..drama instead! Our son has been living in our city unit for the last 9 years (and his fiance for 2 years) and after buying his own home, today they finally moved out. We started shifting them in yesterday and all was going well today…. well, that is except for the downpour (first day of rain for about 6 months!!)  which happened as we were about to load furniture but that was ok, little did we know there was worse to come. Mr FH had helped us shift then had headed back to the farm so we loaded lots of leftovers into our cars and were just starting to get unpacked and find homes for everything (we had been there all of 3 hours) when my son turned one the kitchen sink tap and a cap on a water heater pipe (inside the wall) came off and flooded the laundry and bathroom. It was steaming hot water which was going everywhere and as you can imagine we didn’t know where the water main was so we had trouble stopping it. The water was coming out at the bottom of the wall and the wall was looking like it was going to cave in!!!! Finally we managed to find an outside tap to stop the water and find an emergency plumber who came to our rescue. After a bill of $140 (I really thought it might be more) and a gaping hole in the laundry wall we had things sorted.


Tomorrow we are spending the day cleaning our unit ready for tenants to move in and then tackle this repair job! Hopefully I will have time to write the post I planned for today!

Suzyq