Our Lockdown Kitchen Makeover

Five years ago Stonecroft was featured in Your Home magazine (see HERE). In recent times the white walls were starting to look dingy and depressing making us wonder what on earth possessed us to paint the most used room in the house such an impractical colour. We'd talked about redecorating for ages but somehow never found the time until lockdown presented us with the perfect opportunity to get stuck in.

 

I think it was Mei who'd left a comment suggesting Jon and I recreate the magazine photographer, Colin's photo once we'd finished the kitchen...well, today's the day and of course, we still own the same clothes five years on.

Inspired by a Victorian autopsy room I'd fallen in love with in a TV series, we'd decided to paint the walls in a similar shade of green. Normally we'd have had the paint custom mixed but due to lockdown there was a nationwide paint shortage and the only company with any stock available was the posh British paint manufacturer, Farrow & Ball and even then there was a four week waiting list. The price of a 5 litre tin of Arsenic brought tears to our eyes but it was the perfect shade and the quality was so good that we only needed one coat on the walls. 

Our chilli lights were from this website

As it was lockdown we didn't have access to DIY shops or salvage yards so we had to make do with what we had lying around. Thank goodness we're hoarders! The cupboard in the photo above was a bog standard laminate one bought from Ikea's Bargain Corner over a decade ago. Jon cut up an old wooden pallet someone had kindly dumped over the garden wall to clad the front and sides and salvaged the legs from an old Rajasthani coffee table to hide the ugly metal feet. We had some turquoise emulsion lurking in the depths of the coal house which I mixed with baking power to make chalk paint. I applied a couple of coats to the wood, then sanded and waxed it, giving us the distressed finish we both love. The brass peacock handles were an impulse buy from a roadside stall in Goa a couple of years ago.

Jon replaced the existing tiled worktop with the top of the coffee table. Browsing a tile website we both loved their textured marine blue tiles and were able to order them on line and have them delivered. We'd already got some coloured grout leftover from when Jon tiled the lounge fireplace. The shelves were originally part of a Victorian cupboard which Jon cut to size and waxed last week, we bought the Singer brackets online.

Another online purchase was a few metres of textured apple green vinyl bought from a car upholstery supplier I found on eBay. We sanded down and repainted the 1930s dining chairs which we'd inherited from Jon's mum, who in turn had inherited from her parents, and recovered the seat pads. 

Our off-white retro fridge packed up last year and we replaced it with this Bush model. The black version was half the price of their other colours and lucky for us, it was the one we liked the most.

In the magazine feature this frame contained a repro film poster than came free with The Guardian which we've since replaced with a vintage lobster tea towel I bought for 50p from a charity shop. The Hindu leaf paintings, bought in India in 2000, have always been in this frame but I updated the boring beech finish with some homemade chalk paint. The collection of antique Indian matchbox covers were a £1.50 eBay find, the wooden frame came from the clearance charity shop a few weeks ago.

I'm sure you'll remember me painting this Victorian glazed shop cupboard back in the summer. It cost £5 from a car boot sale and hung on the opposite wall for years. I revamped it with the Farrow & Ball Arsenic paint and painted the inside with blackboard paint so it that didn't completely blend in with the wall.

The freestanding cupboard was originally the base of one of those orange pine dressers that were all the rage in the '70s. It belonged to Jon's grandparents and followed us from our previous house (the top part hangs on the wall in the utility room). We gave it a lick of paint and Jon added a new top using a section cut from an Edwardian paneled door rescued from a skip, staining and waxing it. The drawers are Edwardian and made from old Cadbury's & Fry's Chocolate packing crates. They were a car boot sale find years ago and cost a couple of quid. I stained and waxed them, but not too carefully, I hate old things to look new.

The antique wine rack, another car boot buy, also got a chalk paint makeover. 

And talking of chalk paint, I also revamped this little key cupboard bought for £1 from a car boot sale, replacing the hooks for Victorian glass bottles dug up in the garden of our previous house. 

When we bought Stonecroft there were two recesses which we decided to knock into a single, larger one. We used a reclaimed railway sleeper as a mantle shelf.  There's spotlights and an extractor fan behind.

Jon built the corner cupboard using the doors from the aforementioned Victorian cupboard and some handles from a knackered 1930s dressing table that was used as firewood years ago. The architrave came from Liz & Al's wood pile. This too was painted in Arsenic paint.

The shelves are planks of wood salvaged from the Victorian cupboard. There's the Moghul inspired shelf Sarah made for us, isn't it a perfect match?

The shelves above the kitchen window were once part of our Rajasthani coffee table.

The glass pendant lamps were an online purchase. The previous shades (a mix of car boot finds and Ikea) were repurposed as garden planters.

The brand new bespoke Belfast sink unit was an eBay bargain years ago, the seller had changed their minds about the style of kitchen they wanted and just wanted rid of it. The brass taps were a car boot sale find as were the black porcelain knobs.

Ignore all the junk on the top of our larder, an antique Hungarian cupboard, Jon refused to move it just for a blog photo!  This came from a junk shop in Walsall ages ago.

Check out my spice rack, a vintage Indian bread tray I'd originally bought as a present for a friend but decided I couldn't live without it! 

My DIY kitchen clock. In Colin's photo it was advertising Corona beer (not the most appropriate thing to have in these strange times!) I spray painted the silver frame a metallic champagne gold with a can I found lurking at the back of the cupboard and, using the old picture as a template, I cut around a laminated image of Bollywood goddess, Helen, from the legendary 1967 movie Jewel Thief, which I'd bought from a flea market in India donkey's years ago.

 VIX: Vintage Krist Gudman of San Francisco patchwork maxi (gift from ex-blogger Krista), silver ankle boots (La Redoute, 2016), 1960s copper & turquoise pendant (inherited from Mum)  JON: Diesel Black Label waistcoat, vintage pin striped wool trousers, 1970s tooled leather belt, Jiggler Lord Berlue shirt (all charity shopped)

Our online purchases were the pendant lights, tiles, Arsenic paint, Singer shelf brackets and green vinyl, everything else was salvaged, repurposed and revamped using stuff we already owned. Our kitchen will forever remind us of lockdown!

Stay safe & see you soon.