Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
lavender_lass

Creative and inexpensive ideas

lavender_lass
13 years ago

I was over on the Home Decorating forum, looking at cottage style kitchens, and I noticed a lot of the pictures were showing creative and probably inexpensive ideas for kitchens.

So, I started wondering, does anyone do those fun, but not always professional, kitchen decorating...often seen in 70's and 80's (and sometimes 90's) magazines? The decorated cabinet doors, everything from hand painted to magazine/calender pictures, with urethane over them? The backsplashes with hand painted (your hands) tiles or metal/tin ceiling tiles, with a coat of paint? Painted wooden floors with throw rugs...or sometimes painted rugs? Painted appliances or an old chandlier/light fixture, repainted and given new life?

Anyway, I just wondered if anyone on the forum has done anything like that in their kitchen? Did you do it, family member, friend? If you're not good at painting, maybe stenciling, stamping, etc? Anyone remember macrame plant hangers? Do you sew your own curtains/pillows, valances? If you have any fun ideas...please share them...or better yet, a picture :)

Comments (11)

  • aloha2009
    13 years ago

    No pictures, but on our previous house, we painted a very light cream on our white wash oak cabinets. I took a marker (yes a marker) and outlined the beveling in a mocho color from the craft store. Installed new ORB handles and it looked spectacular! Cost gallon of primer, gallon of paint, and 2 markers.

  • rafor
    13 years ago

    I'm considering painting the wooden floor in my kitchen. We have a 230 year old colonial and the wood floor in the kitchen is different from the rest of the wood flooring in the house. The rest of the floors are wide planks and original to the house. The kitchen floor looks like it was installed in the last 20 years or so and used wide boards but is still quite different than the rest. The movers scratched the finish in a few places when they moved the refrigerator and since the floor is already different, I thought I might paint it rather than have it refinished. That would just be a temporary fix until a big kitchen remodel a few years down the road. I like to mess around with my house and see what i can come up with and this sounds like fun.

  • lyvia
    13 years ago

    My cousin did a wonderful job stenciling trim in her house. She used a sponge and a template, and it came out lovely.

    A friend of mine has multi color family handprints down a staircase, and it's a cheerful loving touch - makes me smile.

    I have handwoven curtains and two handspun handwoven couch blankets. I have a knit cotton dishrag at work, and it is a wonderful scrubbie - rinses and dries easily, but tough enough to scrub. Seems to hold less grunge than a sponge. I keep meaning to make one for home.

  • Shades_of_idaho
    13 years ago

    I painted a back splash in our guest bath with glass. I have shown this before. Getting ready to do the same for the master bath. Certainly NOT professional but it was fun to do.

    Chris

    Here is a link that might be useful: This and next two pictures in album

  • mtnrdredux_gw
    13 years ago

    Not in a kitchen, I think kitchens are a little daunting since they have such high price tags you don't want to screw it up...

    I used rubber stamps to decorate bathroom walls. The bathroom was a jack and jill, with my young son's room on one side and and a bedroom DH used as an office on the other side. The walls were off white, and I bought vintage-y looking rubber stamps, and made a random pattern (quite widely spaced, the room was mostly off white) with black ink. Things like an old typewriter, and ink well, a trout, a crescent moon, etc etc. People always liked it.

    In our daughter's nursery, we had a cottage garden theme. We bought wooden shutters and window boxes, painted them white with cast iron strapping hardware and hung them inside the room. The windows boxes were all filled with stuffed animals (realistic ones, no hot pink or purple .... lol).

    All of this now painted over and removed for staging, alas.

    PS I saw a kitchen the other day with a beadboard backsplash, and then they had delft tiles here and there, hanging like little paintings. Very cute.

  • formerlyflorantha
    13 years ago

    Homemade curtains and romans? Little motifs sewn on plain colored hand towels? I've done that.

    Crocheted hotpads--my sis makes these and has begun to make felted wool crocheted trivets.

    I've stenciled walls. I wanted to stencil our new floors but DH objected.

    Does the brick-look Contact paper wainscot in the minimal eating area in my 1972 kitchen count?

    I sew bags to cover mixers, blenders, food processors.

    Am upholstering the tops of our craftsman-style stools to customize them.

    My sister in law used to do a lot of ceramic pot work. We used to have toggle bolts in ceiling, with hanging plants. Until one flung itself down the basement stairway.

    [Lavendar, I have photo to send to you if you would put email address into the info page]

  • chicagoans
    13 years ago

    Pre-reno kitchen: I made simple valances. I liked the colors and they were easy.

    New (2 years) kitchen: I made a window treatment by hanging a wine holder horizontally and stuffing a scarf through it. I found the wine holder at a sidewalk sale and liked the wrought iron vine with glass leaves look. It's different (but that suits me!)

    Pre reno home-made curtains:
    {{gwi:1487035}}

    Current "curtain rod" that is actually a wine holder:
    {{!gwi}}

  • TxMarti
    13 years ago

    After we pulled the wallpaper off the walls, the walls looked so bad that I decided to paint them temporarily until we redid the kitchen. I did a stencil around the room, doors and all, to take the attention off the dreary wall. That was 10 years ago!

    {{!gwi}}

    Still haven't decided what I want on the walls when we remodel...smooth walls, beadboard, or something else?

  • calimama
    13 years ago

    I have made slip covers for chairs, and am currently working on some roman shades (2 down, 1 to go) for my kitchen. The only other thing I have been able to put my creative mark on was my faux stone outlet covers I painted.

    I am also thinking of making some pictures out of the extra material from my shades, but haven't gotten that far. Also planning to make a few frames out of ALL those glass backsplash samples I ordered. Has anyone had any success with that?

  • remodelfla
    13 years ago

    WOW calimama... that looks AWESOME!!

  • fdemartino
    13 years ago

    Painting floors is so much fun. I wish I could do it, but our floors were recently re-done, before we moved in. In the Feb/mar issue of Better Homes & Gardens or House Beautiful, one designer painted her floors. The sky's the limit. Also, you can paint your ceiling a contrast color. It adds dimention. It's very cool. Now my kitchen ceiling is a darker green than my walls. In the past my ceiling was a purple/blue & the rest of the kitchen all white.

    Have fun & post some pics!