Making a kitchen on a budget |
Scrapbook blog of the restoration of a listed building in Bristol, UK. By James Osmond.
James Osmond, Double House, Old House, Historic, House, Restoration, Listed Building, Blog, Bristol, UK, doublehouse, home, rennovation
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Making a kitchen on a budget

We had been very lucky to have a dry summer whilst using the temporary kitchen in the garden. To tell you the truth, it was quite fun. Come autumn however, it was cold and dark in the evening and I was often cooking by the light of a head-torch. The novelty of this soon wore off so I was pleased when the builders announced that they were done and I could finally get in to start the internal fit.

By this time, we were pretty broke so I had to somehow complete the fit for under £3k without it looking crap. I had plenty of ideas about how costs could be saved, but skimping on floor tiles wasn’t one of them. This was a job that I’d rather not repeat in our lifetime so we chose exactly what we wanted from a quality supplier and saved costs by deciding not to tile the utility room, opting instead to seal the screed with a two pack resin floor coating. Total cost for floors: £1200 approx.

We ordered some cupboard units and a couple of Belfast sinks from DIY-Kitchens.com but we saved here by not ordering plinths, end-pieces, corner pieces or a worktop. I’m very fussy about colour and I knew I would want to paint the units in a colour of my choice (F&B ‘Railings’ as it turned out), so it seemed silly to pay inflated prices for colour-matched MDF plinths and joining pieces when I could buy the wood locally, cut it to size and paint it myself. Total cost for kitchen units and sinks: £1000 approx

The work surfaces and dining table top I made by joining lengths of reclaimed scaffold planks using dowels and gorilla glue (clamped overnight). These could then be cut, sanded, the sink recess routed out, and finally finished with a couple of coats of OSMO oil. The legs for the dining table, along with the framework for the utility room sink and work surface, and a huge floor to ceiling free-standing storage shelf unit, were all made from the joists removed from the garage and lean-to kitchen which I’d saved when dismantling these structures. All the shelf surfaces were also made from reclaimed scaffold planks. Total cost of scaffold planks required for all shelves and work surfaces: £100 approx.

Another cool little cost-saving exercise is making your own mixer taps out of 15mm copper piping. We had some left over so I borrowed the plumber’s pipe-bender to bend 2 sections into a swan neck shape, bought a few stop-cock taps, no-return valves, tees and bends from Toolstation and had fun joining it all together with a blow-torch, some solder and some flux. These could then be buffed up with wire wool and lacquered. Total cost for two mixer taps (one for the utility room), connections and all sink waste connections for two sinks (one set reused): £30 approx.

The rest of the budget was spent as follows:

Cooker Hood and Dishwasher: £600 approx.

Wood for skirting: £20 approx.

Paint: £100 approx.

Lampshades: £30 approx.

LED under-shelf strip light: £30 approx.

 

Total spend: £3110.

 

Here’re some ‘Before & After’ shots…

2 Comments
  • Sarah Currell
    Reply

    Amazing James! Loving the tips xxx

    February 9, 2020 at 8:18 pm
  • Laura Bradley
    Reply

    This is so brilliant!

    February 11, 2020 at 11:03 pm

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