we are up for an interiors award!!!!!!!
Hi Guys!! I hope everyone is well. There’s some exciting news here at I.S HQ… I’m so so excited to say that my own kitchen is up for an award under the ‘best room revamp,’ category in the UK Interior Awards!!! The reason that I’m so thrilled about this is because of all of the time, blood sweat and tears (literally!) that went into the renovation of our kitchen.
When we bought our home, we fell in love with the space and the location. The big open plan rooms were a million miles away from the small narrow walls of our London terraced house and although the decor wasn’t what we would have chosen, we were able to look past that and see that it was all cosmetic.
We moved in in October 2018, less than 2 months before having our daughter and second child Eva. Having originally thought that we would be able to live in it quite happily before doing any renovations, I didn’t take into consideration that my pregnancy nesting would force me into wanting to bring my baby to a home that felt like mine!! So not even a month after she was born, we found ourselves, newborn in arms…. planning the kitchen refurb!
From this picture you can see that the kitchen was a great size but the black gloss just felt too dark and glitzy for us. To be honest I’ve never been into glossy surfaces and black just isn’t my jam so it had to go. At first we debated getting the gloss sprayed, replacing the doors and then replacing the kitchen entirely… all quite costly when taking the size of the kitchen into consideration. Then one night Andy spotted a crack in the gloss and had a light bulb moment….
Kitchen Before….
Andy peeled off some of the gloss and realised that underneath the gloss, the cupboards were wooden!!!! We then hatched a plan to take the gloss off of every door and surface and then paint the wood. It sounds easier than it was in reality and we then spent countless evenings scraping the gloss from the doors, and this is all with a three year old and a newborn to look after…. yep I think we were a bit nuts!!
First we heated the glue with a heat gun, then we scraped the gloss off with a Stanley knife. We had to be careful not to damage the wood underneath… and ourselves!!!
Once all of the gloss was off (there were inevitably a couple of injuries!) we then primed all of the wood and decided which paint colours to use. I knew that I wanted the island to be a darker colour to contrast the wall units, and in the end we opted for Farrow and Ball Lamp Room grey for the wall units and Manor House Grey for the island.
We tackled the painting bit by bit… as someone who likes things to be, ‘just so,’ at home, this was hard for me!! But I always remind myself that the end result is always worth it.
Once we had finished the painting we then sprayed all of the handles gold which really stood out against the grey.
This process took months but every second was worth it! Once the painting was complete it was time to add the finishing touches. We replaced the ceiling lights (if you haven’t noticed them, go back and have a peak now… they’re pretty special!!) with a central pendant and pendants over the island. We changed the stools for navy velvet and gold stools which added a pop of colour and some depth and texture to balance out the large amount of grey. My clever hubby also made the herringbone wine rack from some MDF, some trim and the same paint and gold spray that we used for the units… not bad for a financial adviser hey!
And this is what it looks like now!! We’re so happy with the transformation and thrilled that our kitchen is up for an award!!!!
I would be absolutely over the moon if you would like to vote for us in the awards. I will leave the link below, it literally takes 2 minutes. I am number 12 under the category ‘Best room Revamp’ and I will love you FOREVER!!!!!
https://www.ukinteriorawards.co.uk/vote
I’ll let you know how we get on, keep your fingers crossed for us!
Lots of love as always
Jade x