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This thoughtful renovation turned a cramped and dated 70s-era kitchen into a bright and functional contemporary space.
The project
We renovated the kitchen in our 1930s house. The previous renovation was done in the 1970s.
The old kitchen had no space for preparing food – the double sink took up all of the bench space.
There was only enough room in the kitchen for one person at a time, and we also wanted to plan for a dishwasher and a bigger stove.
We built a storage unit in the living room (you can see it at the right of the photo above) that now stores all of our food, allowing for more space in the kitchen.
We built everything ourselves, using materials from Bunnings and IKEA, and spent about $5000.
There were three busy days of pulling out the old kitchen, painting, installing the new kitchen, linking up the sink and the dishwasher, and installing the benchtop.
It took a few days before that to assemble the new kitchen in another room – we just brought the parts in when they were all ready. The planning and the sourcing took about two months, doing it all in our spare time.
The rail and the hooks are from Bunnings.
We consulted with Bunnings staff a lot during the project. They helped pick the paint to paint over the old tiles, as well as helping us pick out the bench and the material for a protective coating for it.
I read the Bunnings magazine a lot too – there were features on space saving and benchtops that were very helpful. We were conscious of needing to create a lot of storage without it looking bulky, and kept that in mind while designing the kitchen.
Now the kitchen is much more spacious, bright, and functional. There are still elements we’d like to improve, as always, but we're very happy with the results so far!
Before and after
More inspiration for your kitchen
Experienced Bunnings Workshop contributor Adam_W has put together this handy guide to planning a kitchen renovation. You can also check out our Top 10 most popular kitchen projects.
If you just need a quick kitchen refresh, check out our collection of 10 kitchens transformed with paint. You can begin transforming your own kitchen with our step-by-step video guides to painting kitchen cabinets and painting a tiled splashback.
Let us know if you need a hand with your kitchen project. We're here to help.
