Experimenting with your home, but on a budget? We tried several things on one cabinet, all economical experiments of course.
Day #2 of home ownership here, excuse our mess, we had our cleaning supplies in tow. Do you see how naïve I was to think we would only need one bottle of Downey for wallpaper removal? I chuckle to myself thinking about it now...
I did not care for that panel at all, who thought this was a cool thing to have in a kitchen? It looked fake... green... the kitchen was blue and they put a green panel in this cabinet door? I did not understand it... I admit at the time, I believe your choices were either green or harvest gold, I think I would choose green over gold too, or better yet, why not chose a solid panel? So we were stuck with what we had for a while.
Sorry, it is not a very good picture, at the time, I was not blogging and had just taken a picture of the new knobs we had installed. You see, when we moved here, the knobs were white porcelain. Pretty typical for 1980's make overs. Do you see the panel? Not very attractive, is it with its swirls? I purchased the knobs in bulk online and I want to say I paid $25 for 20 knobs? Something crazy like that. Like I have said before, I can be pretty frugal. 😉
So then, I decided to purchase venetian bronze lincane sheet metal that appeared to have a cane like pattern, ($18, at that time). It worked for a little bit, it was better than the plastic sheet of green swirls that were up. When I looked more closely at this picture, it appears I put the lincane sheet metal over the green plastic, must have been seeing what I thought of it before taking the plunge in removing the green plastic piece.
When we removed the plate rack in our kitchen and installed the built in cabinet, I decided the bronze lincane would no longer work. I decided to use some left over cloverleaf pattern sheet metal that we used on our cabinet doors. This whole project came in around $200.00 for this entire cabinet.
I had the bronze pulls on our cabinets until we did the backsplash make over, and asked you folks which you preferred. You chose the mercury glass pulls. I have to admit, I like them too... especially with the silver cloverleaf pattern!
Here you can see where I had already changed out the bronze lincane for the cloverleaf pattern before the backsplash was completed. A lot of people use these types of sheet metal for radiator covers. We enjoy being creative and came up with the idea of using the sheet metal since we decided against glass cabinet doors.
Do you know how organized you have to be if you have all glass doors? I would not exactly say I am organized all of the time in my cupboards. A lot of thoughts drift in and out of this brain of mine... and I tend to change up things pretty often on a whim. Yeah, one of those people... I can come and go on a whim, but sometimes I have my best ideas then.
Mr. Vintage and I at one time had different opinions of how this kitchen should look. He likes more modern style, and I see a cozy cottage kitchen. Since our home is an English cottage, I think we should stay on her path, so she is always in style. If you stay within the time period of your home, or the style it will always be fashionable.
You can see how we are still stuck in a 1980's renovation. I am still befuddled why our kitchen is cut in two by that large peninsula. I would think you would want it to appear as large as you can. I go back and forth about the idea of a kitchen island, but I also like the idea of a kitchen table where I can work at too. Kind of what I shared with you on the unfitted kitchen is what I can imagine.
So you can see this one cabinet door has had many different looks over the years, but I like the way it looks now best.
Mr. Vintage picked out those mercury glass knobs himself. He did a good job ($36 for 20 knobs). You can make small updates that make a big impact too, for probably less than you think.
I like the way the cloverleaf matches our built in. I was hoping to have another cabinet built to share with you all by now, but covid threw a wrench in our plans. I have not been able to get out there and search for what I need to see this new idea come to fruition. It's okay, it will get done when it is meant to be completed.
What do you think about this one cabinet door's journey? She sure has been put to the test. I love that cloverleaf pattern so much I have even considered putting it in other places. It is timeless and never goes out of style, plus I liked the idea of spreading a bit of luck around the kitchen. 😉
