"New" Kitchen Cabinets at Knottliten Cottage

KNOTTLITEN COTTAGE ~

The kitchen in our 1925 cottage was remodeled in the 80's and it looked like it. Within the first two months we lived here, we added a dishwasher, bought new white appliances, installed white tile floors and counter tops, painted the walls white, changed the light fixtures, and added a large white farmhouse sink with a new silver faucet. We didn't, however, do anything to the 1980's cabinets except clean them profusely with expensive anti-smoke cleaner (the previous inhabitants were heavy smokers) and add cute silver pulls. When we priced cabinets, it would have been more expensive for new (old-fashioned looking) cabinets than the entire rest of the kitchen remodel. We just couldn't afford new cabinets and were resigned to living with the completely out-of-place, 1980's ones.

Three years later, I was reading The Lettered Cottage blog and fell in love with their black cabinets. I asked my husband about painting our cabinets black, but he wasn't sure it would look good. Then we found a picture on the Lettered Cottage of their original cabinets before painting. They were the EXACT same cabinets we had! My husband was totally on board with the painting after that. We had to finish our basement remodel, build a fence and landscape our yard first. But a year after finding the Lettered Cottage cabinets, we finally had time to do our own this past weekend. My folks babysat the twins and it took us two full days and $100 to turn our cabinets from this -

To this ~

We basically added beadboard to the sides, sanded the doors and cabinets, primed them, then painted four coats of glossy black paint with brush rollers. We absolutely love them!

~Janna

PS Linking up to Between Naps on the Porch Metamorphosis Monday and the House in the Roses Show Off Your Cottage and Cottage Instincts Make it for Monday.

Plants and a sweet potato casserole at Knottliten Cottage

The plants that I chose for the back yard (greens, yellows, reds, tropical ish) -

The plants that I chose for the front yard (blues, purples, pinks, whites) -The mature plants already in the front yard (pink azalea and purple lilac tree) -Proof that I do sometimes make dinner (sweet potato omelette casserole) -

Sorry for the photo quality; it was hailing when I took these pics :)

Christmas at Knottliten Cottage

The tree. It's the smallest (and cheapest :) one we could find and it's up on the trunk, so the babies can't destroy it. I had extra fabric from the cuff of the burlap stockings my mom made us, so we cut the red, green and tan plaid fabric into strips to tie on the branches, white lights and an angel with a patchwork skirt to decorate the tree. A burlap tree skirt inside out (the other side has adorable felt ornaments that would be too much temptation for the babies).

The centerpiece. I made this in five minutes with stuff already around the house - two wine glasses from Goodwill I had in the cupboard, red tea lights I had in storage, extra trimmings from the tree and the berries from the fall front porch decor.

The front porch. This was almost free - more tree trimmings, holly cut from my neighbor's yard and a red bead garland I found at Target for $2.

Go here to see more thrifty holiday decor linked to The Shabby Nest.

Front porch for fall

Front porch do-it-yourself decor at Knottliten Cottage
(my daughter's cottage in the city).

I already had the fake white pumpkin (from Michael's a few year's ago) and used Target dollar bin Halloween transfers for the spiders and webs and a ribbon I already had. The ghost jar was made by my Mom (Esther) following the instructions at this post and the gourd is a yellow squash from my neighbor's garden that I spray painted black. The brown branch pumpkin in back was a half price Rite-aid find at the after-Halloween sale last year. The stalk sticking up came from the neighbor's corn in their garden.

The orange ceramic jack-o-lantern and "Happy Halloween" pumpkins are from TJ Maxx. On the second fake white pumpkin I already had, I painted "BOO" with stencils and added a brown ribbon from my craft supplies. The branches fell off our plum tree and the white berries are fake (I think from my mom's craft supplies). The jack-o-lantern jars were also made by Esther.




Another clearance branch pumpkin from Rite-aid. Then I bought a craft pumpkin from Micheal's and spray painted it white and added a ribbon from my craft supplies. The red Cinderella pumpkin on bottom is real (from another neighbor's garden) and I used a black sharpie to write out Trick or Treat.

The wooden ladder was no longer safe to use for home repairs, so my parents gave it to me to use for decoration. I cleaned it and spray painted it black. The day after Halloween, I plan on removing the jars and the TJ Maxx pumkins, adding a few gourds in their place and just turning around the three pumpkins with Halloween decor. Then I can use this through Thanksgiving!

Click here for "A Soft Place to Land" full of do-it-yourself links.

Are you looking for cute office decor? Check here to enter "Beneath My Heart" giveaway!

The Perfect Chair for roughly 20 bucks.

My daughter, Janna, and her husband and twin babies live in an urban cottage built in 1924 that she has named Knottliten Cottage (Knottliten meaning very tiny). Their living room is especially narrow and as such, their large brown recliner never really fit well. They moved the large brown recliner downstairs to the playroom and found a smaller, attractive chair at IKEA -

IKEA Tullsta Chair

The chair is white and the slip cover is cream, gray or red plaid, none of which worked for her living room, so she decided not to purchase it and keep looking. It just so happened that I had an extra IKEA Tullsta chair in my house, because I had bought two new ones from IKEA (the cream slip covers worked for me) and a few weeks later found the same chair and slipcover at a garage sale for $5. I didn't know Janna was looking at this same chair at the time. When she told me she wanted that chair, except for the color, I decided to try using dye on the slip cover. It took five packs of dye (~15.00) in my washing machine with the slip cover and small pillow, but it turned out great. The color matches her living room and she found an adorable round footstool at Home Goods for $30 to go with the chair. Because it was a used chair it already has more of a shabby, comfy look to it, which fits their cottage perfectly.

The chair in Knottliten Cottage.

Visit A Soft Place to Land to see more do it yourself projects!