Week 3 of the $100 Room Challenge - Hardware and Shelves
Hello again! It's hard to believe that we are already in Week 3!
Last week we left off with finally installing a difficult sliding drawer for garbage (yeah!), and starting the amazing paint transformation. If you missed it, you can get caught up here.
Since then, we've been busy with more painting and trying to decide on hardware. We've already been over my newfound love affair with DecoArt Satin Enamel paints (not sponsored), so we'll go ahead and talk about hardware.
Just like it was a no brainer that the colour of the island was going to change (I know I'm going against a lot of people's preference when I say this, but I really don't like white cabinets :0), the hardware was also always going to go. The big question was what we would pick to take its place. The hardware in the rest of the kitchen is nice enough -- simple, chrome coloured handles. The island, though, is a great place to do something fun and a little different.
I love the look of cup handles, so for awhile we thought we might try that. Once we held them up to the island with its new colour, though, it just didn't seem to fit.
Then we spotted these great matte black handles. They seem to be made to go with this red. So with a little help from my little helper (who doesn't like any quasi-loud noises, but loves helping), we installed the new handles!
(And...yes...that's our garbage in the background. Keeping it real!)
What a difference those handles make!
Also in the hardware department, in an effort to save as much as possible, we decided to keep the old painted over hinges, at least for now, and to just update them with a little craft paint. These pictures aren't the best, but they give you an idea of the before and after.
Their new coat is holding up to wear and tear much better than i anticipated, so they may end up staying like this for longer than we thought.
Once it starts chipping away or rubbing off, we'll get some proper black hinges, and we put some painters' tape on the back before we reinstalled them to help prevent any peeling of paint on the island itself. I recently found this clever hack on someone's Insta Stories (I believe it was from the DIY Mommy), but I unfortunately cant remember exactly.
Another job we tackled this week was adjusting the shelf area of the island. This part of the island was just added on, and, to be honest, we aren't sure if we will be keeping it long term. With that in mind, we didn't want to put any significant money, or energy for that matter, into this part. We did, however, want adjust the shelves so that the compost pail would fit under the bottom shelf. Not a big job here.
After doing that it came down to trying to decide what exactly we would do with this part of the island décor wise. At first we decided not to paint the inside (conserving time and money, and all that). But it just didn't look right. Then we painted the front of the shelf only. Still didn't seem right. After checking how much paint was left, it was decided that the best thing would be to paint all the insides the same colour as the rest of the island.
By this point I was pretty tired of painting and coming down with the flu, so I did a pretty sloppy job, and didn't take the brackets off. I hate when people do that...but it happens, and even I'm guilty of it.
Sloppy job or not, once done, it was pretty obvious that it was the right call for this space. We'll take some of that same craft paint to those white hinges, to make it all blend seamlessly with the handles.
And that's what we've got for this week! Next week, we will be trying to figure something out for the back and countertop, and, since we aren't quite sure what we will be doing, it's bound to be exciting!
Be sure to check out the others' progress in the following links, and how our budget is holding up just below.
So, budget-wise, last week we left off with $53.50.
Our gorgeous handles ended up costing us $29, so we now have $24.50 left to work with! Let's hope we can squeeze some magic out of that!
Until next time,
God bless
Cheryl
and was falling victim to the flu so I didn't do the best job if it, but good enough to look
