Ode to Orla Kiely - My Kitchen Refurb

After a long hiatus, I'm glad to share with you my kitchen makeover - dark grey and Orla Kiely themed!  Whilst my kitchen before wasn't terrible, I really disliked the mix match of wood colours and it wasn't my style.  I had actually picked a new kitchen (acrylic gloss) with a  U-shaped layout, but decided to cancel the order when I separated from my partner last year.  The total cost of this project including all the Orla Kiely accessories was under £1000 and I'm surper pleased with the results.

General Finishes Queenstown Gray

I'd seen upcycle projects using my favourite General Finishes Milk Paint on Pinterest and thought it might be a fun project to try.  I originally thought I'd go with the paler Seagull or Driftwood, but I kept being drawn to projects that used the darkest Queenstown Gray, so decided to be brave.  I used the High Performance Flat Topcoat.  The worktops were sanded back and stained with GF wood stain in Walnut.  For the walls, I used Johnstone's who colour matched to Farrow and Ball Ammonite

As you can see from the above photo, I have 12 cupboard doors of varying size and 6 drawers. I boxed in some pipes with MDF and painted that along with a freestanding shelving unit. There were also the kickboards, cupboard sides, wall shelves and backsplash, not to mention random stuff like my doggie door stop and even some picture mounts! I opted for 1 large (gallon size) tin of the milk paint and 2 of the top coat. I painted 2 -3 coats of milk paint on both sides and 3-4 coats of topcoat. I opted for the smallest tin of wood stain for the worktop. The total price for all the paints, topcoats and stains was £241.

Paint Sprayer

C/O Screwfix - Earlex HV55 HVLP Sprayer currently £187.99

I wanted a perfect finish, so decided to abandon trusty foam brushes and set about researching a paint sprayer.  Bamboozled by options, I spoke to the helpful guy at General Finishes Edinburgh who said a HVLP (high volume low pressure) sprayer would be best.  I was set to hire one from Glasgow, but managed to get a bargain on EBay for £107.

Prepping the Space- Just Call Me Dexter

OK, so I did go a bit overboard with the whole prep thing!  Life would have been infinitely easier with a garage, but alas, I don't have one *sigh*.  I needed to fully protect the floor and window area and spray inside the room.  I got the dust sheets, overalls, mask and floor protector  all from Screwfix.  When a friend told me that the orange mask filter looked like a massive tongue that photo gets even more ridiculous!!  I ended up ditching the overalls, the sprayer really wasn't that messy.  The floor protector however is really an excellent product, I ended up hoovering and mopping it and it was very durable but peeled back without damaging the floor or leaving residue.

First Coats

I did quite a full coverage on some of the first coats, but then decided that it would be better to layer up the colour more gradually.  I had a scrap of cardboard about 60cm by 30cm that turned out to be very handy when blocking any overspray, as this was the size of my full and half sized cupboards/drawers.

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men

I started the project over the Easter weekend and thought I'd prep the room Friday, paint on Saturday and Sunday and be finished and relaxing on Monday.  Pah-hah-hah, what wishful thinking! I was still doing topcoats each night after work and then when I got a horrible lurgy-flu it was just grims-ville trying to paint whilst coughing and spluttering into a mask. I'm glad I painted the fronts and backs, but it certainly added more than double to the time as each side had to be completely dry before I could flip and paint the next layer. 

In a distressed call to my close pals, they wisely told me to get some help in for the final push.  My lovely Polish decorator Gregor and his friend Paul came to my rescue.  The lads boxed in an ugly pipe left by nightmare plumbers, did the emulsion and sanded and stained the worktop along with other jobs around the flat.  I was honestly am so indebted to them for all their hard work and for rescuing me from my mini meltdown!

Splashback Stencil

I love the Poundland metallic sticker paper for stencils. It cuts well with the Silhouette and has a washi-tape like stickiness, never taking off even the most delicate of paint finishes. This time though, the force of the Earlex sprayer meant there was a little bleeding. No biggie, I just tidied up with an artists' paintbrush, but a repositionable vinyl may have been better in this instance.

Hob Cover

One of my major bug bears of the kitchen is the tall cabinet in the middle of the wall.  It splits the kitchen in two, reducing worktop space and would have been much better at either end.  I therefore ordered bespoke hob covers from Hob Covers Direct for just shy of £100.  I was very impressed - the technical drawings came back same day (Sunday) and the covers were with me a few days later.  They do scratch easily, but overall have been a lifesaver for giving me much more worktop space.  They lift up when cooking and so have the benefit of also shielding the splashback from splashes and splatters.

Shelfies - from Shameful Shambles to Shipshape Order

I had a tatty old set of pine garage shelves that was basically in a disgraceful mess. I painted them and bought some boxes for storing the likes of tea towels, food processor accessories and tupperware. I covered the £2.50 DRONA Ikea boxes with Orla Kiely fabric (£18/sq metre), which, as luck would have it, is the right width to cover the 4 sides perfectly! The felt type uncovered boxes are also Ikea - the lidded one next to the microwave is EKET (£10) and BLADDRA ones are £7 each.

Window Seat and Blind

I made the window seat myself but ordered the blind from Lilac Tree, who I was very pleased with. I ordered the foam cut to size from efoam and opted for the dacron wrap with stockinette, so the total came to £48. I actually had issues with my first attempt - the continuous zip kept splitting and I didn't like how the seams on the side panel looked. So I managed to reuse the fabric for the bases of the shelf boxes and started again. This time I wrapped a continuous length of fabric around the cushion and just boxed panels at the angled sides. This time I used thick width velcro instead of a zip. I used the exact dimensions of the foam width and depth for the fabric. The only change I made was to use a cushion thickness of 10.5cm in my calculations rather than the actual thickness of 12cm to give a nice and full plumpness.

OMG are you still with me?

I didn't intend on this post being quite so long, sorry!!  I'll come back and talk about the large stencils I cut with my Silhouette machine for the cocktail cabinet upcycle project and also the backsplash in my next post.  Until then here is a slide show of before and afters.