Under the Toronto Sun: Kitchen project

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Kitchen project - before and after

Plenty of people have lots of money and can buy anything their heart desires. Other have to make do with less and have to get creative when they want something. If you fall into the latter category, I’ll let you in on a little secret.

A while ago I wanted to change the kitchen countertop. I had a look at this item in home improvement stores and was in for a surprise. A granite countertop cost between $700 and $1,200 for the size that I needed, plus $100 to cut the shape of the sink in the countertop, plus $100 to have the granite slab delivered to my home.

This was ‘a little’ out of my budget. So, I went looking for an alternative.

The home improvement store also had faux granite countertops, made from chipboard and topped with some kind of plastic. I looked at a few slabs but found them still rather expensive. Between $200 and $300 to fit my kitchen.

And then, quite by accident, I came across vinyl. This vinyl gets smoothed over any existing countertop and gives a kitchen a whole new look. As for the cost $20 (two rolls of $10 each).

And the beauty is, if I want to change the look of my kitchen in a few years, the vinyl is easy to remove and replace with another design.

Before

After

I didn’t stop there though. I also installed a faux window in my kitchen.

I had first seen a virtual window at the Princess Margaret Hospital. With its LED light and the sound of birdsongs, it was so lifelike that I immediately went looking for a window of my own.

Unfortunately, such a window was not in my budget. The price of a small window was in the region of $6,000 and the bigger size was priced about $10,000. Ouch.

Never mind though, I am creative, so I went looking for an alternative. Before long I found a window that I liked, it wasn’t as nice as the virtual light box I had seen in the hospital, but it would have to do. Price … $23.

When the window arrived, it was put in the kitchen, and while nice, it was lacking something. The background was wrong. So, the background was changed from paint to bricks (wallpaper, not real bricks).