A little home renovation project - the basement kitchenette.

Every year I try to do a home improvement project, it’s a great way to not only get things done that needs to be done, but it also helps to keep your budget under check. ' This we can do this year, this will have to wait !'

I like to pick on peeling paint, I’ve done it all my life and it’s a terrible habit as I usually am the one who has to do the fixing up after I’ve peeled paint, or pulled wall paper to investigate what was underneath….. 

Peeling paint, wintering plants, and the cats dinner bowls.

In the boring winter months, I had noticed a little scratch in the paint on the wall of the basement kitchenette. With my nail I scrapped it a bit, only to realise that the paint would peel off all too easily and I was left with an ugly patch of greenish-blue peeking out from under the white painted walls. That is a typical problem in older houses where the walls were painted decades before in oil (or other long-lasting) paint, and a modern house owner has covered it with some acrylic, water soluble, eco-friendly version that just won’t stick on the older, non-eco-friendly, hardier quality paints. 

 

Of course, there are ways to make it work, like sanding down the walls, priming, etc… but we had (like many other lazy, or ignorant persons) decided to do a quick cover-that-awful-paint job when we had bought the house.

 And so it was decided that this would be the 2015 project. 

The old cabinets were still pretty sturdy, so I opted for keeping them and only changing the doors, I called a company that could do custom sized doors and the man came within a couple days, measured everything, talked me into a new sink and we agreed on price. Everything should be ready by mid-May….. 

The first job was to remove the new paint, along with the older paint, that had once covered an even older wallpaper. The little kitchenette is not a very big place, but taking off the old wall paper was not easy. Well, pulling the big strips of paper was a bit fun, but removing the last bits of glue and paper from the walls took hours, and hours. I read online that if you soaked it with water and laundry softener  it would come off easy ( or easier, depending on how much muscle power you have in your arm ). Off it went with water, softener and a metal brush. Then came the laying of textured wall paper -the simplest way to cover uneven walls, and  a couple layers of fresh paint.

I suspect this wallpaper was considered 'trendy' in it's time....

So, it was all ready before the 15^th of May….. but the doors and new counter did not arrive till mid-June. Oh, well ! That is quite typical for Norway and the carpenter did a wonderful job despite the fact that one wall is convex and there was no way we would get a straight line from the wall to the counter. I was able to take care of that little problem with a thick layer of clear silicon and now you would hardly know that there is nearly a 7-8mm gap in one place.

Now that is done, I’m pleased with the results….. and the cats are strictly not allowed on the counter anymore !

Before......

After.......