A Kitchen Corner Makeover

Our Kitchen Before

We had a corner in our kitchen that felt very unloved. It didn’t really have a purpose and as a result it became a bit of a dumping ground. I have been looking at putting up a noticeboard for a-g-e-s. You can read that post here. The arrival of Spring was the push I needed to finally sort out our kitchen. It was such a bland wall and corner and I really wanted to give it some interest.

As you can see it was a very boring white wall. Hardly very inspiring to look at when you are cooking the dinner or emptying the dishwasher. In fact I would go as far to say that I hated those walls. Well that is my excuse for not spending very much time in the kitchen over Easter ;-). Going back to my pinterest board I realised that chalk boards were the boards that I seemed to like the most. After much investigation I decided that the most cost-effective and practical board would be a paint on one.

After

After much research we bought the Rust-oleum magnetic chalkboard paint. I went for magnetic because it will allow me to stick up the many letters we get from school for Oldest. It will also give me somewhere to file Youngest’s artwork. It cost £12 from B&Q so it was a far cheaper alternative to buying a board.

We only needed one tin and it took 2 coats. It was really easy to paint on and it dried quickly.

Doesn’t it look great! I was worried that it might make our kitchen feel gloomy as our kitchen doesn’t get much natural light. However, it hasn’t made it any darker and if anything it has created a practical space out of what was a bit of a ‘nothing’ wall. I have tried writing on it in chalk and it works really well  and the chalk also wipes off really easily.

We then wanted to add some interest to the neighbouring wall so we put up these funky box shelves. Again these are from B&Q and cost £13 for three. It has now created a lovely feature wall.

Eventually I would like to buy some trinkets for the two lower shelves, although I think they are still looking pretty good as they are. On the top shelf you can see three milk bottle type vases which are holding my daffodils. I purchased these from Waitrose for about £7. I think they are really lovely and look great in the shelf bringing a touch of colour to the wall.

Processed with VSCO with a6 preset

The shelves are a great way of adding interest to a room and displaying some of your favourite objects. I now have somewhere for my Cath Kidston egg cups. I am also a big fan of motivational quotes. These postcards are from Paperchase.

It also means that we can put money boxes up out of reach from little hands! We then had a general declutter of surfaces and it is amazing what a big difference it has made to the kitchen. We now feel that we have a space that has a purpose and personality. We couldn’t be happier with it and we did it all for under £30.

Sometimes it is the small changes that make all the difference, don’t you agree?

What changes have you made to your house recently?