OF PAINT AND PAINT’S ABILITY
How an upcycling pro created a new-looking kitchen for a lot less than you’d ever expect.
How an upcycling pro created a newlooking kitchen for a lot less than you’d ever expect
There goes the neighbourhood! Or so it seemed when Janet Hamilton and her 15-year-old son, Josh (now 17), pulled into the driveway of their newly purchased 1960s brick bungalow in Burlington, Ont., – in a 30-foot-long RV. For 10 days and nights, the beast, crammed with home furnishings and accessories, just sat there in the driveway. Nobody had said anything, but everyone was definitely thinking:
Who ARE these people?!
“Our last house had sold, but this one was still being renovated. So, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do!” says Janet with a laugh. Looking back, she can’t believe she drove the mammoth RV at all. “I had zero experience!” she remembers, recounting how she navigated the quiet, narrow residential streets at a crawl. “I still don’t know how I pulled it off!”
But living on-site turned out to be a benefit. “I could hop out of the RV and into the house to look in on the renovations. Overseeing a project is important,” says Janet. “As a woman, it can be hard to speak up, but you’ll be living there long after the project is done and the workmen have left, so it’s no time to be quiet.”
Creating a family-friendly kitchen that still felt cool was Janet’s biggest priority. Walls were removed between the former cramped pink kitchen and the tight dining room to transform the area into an open-concept living space.
From there, Janet purchased maple cabinets complete with storage drawers at Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $2,500. They were an eyesore, but as the owner of Paint It Like New!, a furniture-painting company, Janet knew she could give them new life. She coated them in a warm mushroom grey at her shop and then retrofitted them into a cook-friendly arrangement. “Brand new, this would have cost $50,000,” she says.
For texture, Janet panelled the island with greystained cedar planks. “After I finished, the contractor told me I needed to be able to access the plumbing. Uh-oh!” But then she got inventive: She cut a square hole and made a matching panel that could easily be removed. “It’s held on with magnets!” she says with a triumphant grin. It’s that kind of ingenuity – along with her talent for rejuvenating secondhand finds – that helped Janet get the kitchen of her dreams, with no compromises necessary.