Running the gauntlet...

You might recall that in my recent post about Decorating Blues, I mentioned that one of my low/ no cost projects would be to line these cupboards.

They currently sit in an unused space in our living area, housing all sorts of crap that frankly, I would rather the world couldn't see!

In my post I indicated that I could sort myself out a pretty much free solution to my problem, if only I could work up the audacity required to make the necessary trip/s to Bunnings.  Well... I did it!  I'm not particularly proud of myself actually, because even though my solution is technically free, its definitely very cheeky.  What the hell am I talking about?  Friends, here's the scoop....

Bunnings have thousands of colours in free paint chips, waiting to be taken home by punters who will hold them up against their walls and dream of rooms that don't look like the ones they have now!  But not me... I already had my wall colour... it was cupboard colour I was after!

British Paints have a wide range of paint chip colours in a very convenient 4cm x 4cm paint chip square....  so I'd identified the target, it was all down to execution from here!  I decided I'd like a bunch of different blues in mostly teal and turquoise, with a few darker moodier blues thrown in for good measure. 

So without any particular plan, I made my first Bunnings dash spontaneously when I happened to be driving past.  I grabbed a whole lot of colours, a few here, a few there....  I had what felt like an enormous wad of paint chips and brought them home... should be enough for at least two doors, surely?  I measured up the doors (I told you, I did it spontaneously, so I was all back to front) and realised I would need 28 paint chips per door.  And what was my yield from my first mad dash into Bunnings?  29!  That's right, only enough for one door!!!!  Grrrr....

So I decided that my next trip to Bunnings needed to be better planned...  For starters, I was too chicken to do it again on the same day - and I decided that my next run to Bunnings needed to be on a crowded day (my first one was on a week day, so there was far too much visibility of me having the nerve to walk out with a tonne of paint chips!) 

The second time I went was a Sunday afternoon - there were people everywhere, score!  So in I went, I took ages picking out several colours, getting a few of each and hoping I could piece them together okay with the 29 I already had.  Right, out the door I went!

I got home and put them all together, and this is what the pile looked like....

Oh my!  That is a BIG wad of paint chips people!!  I then got the roll of butcher's paper I bought for Alex on a recent Ikea run and laid it out on the bench.  I measured it out and cut 4 pieces that were the size of the cupboard door inlay.

Then I set about piecing all my colours together.  And here's where I came undone....  I have a bit of a thing for symmetry.  I'm trying to break it but on this occasion I just couldn't.  So when I laid it all down together, I found that in order for all four pieces to be the same, I needed 12 more paint chips in 8 specific colours!  It was by this time around 4.30pm on Sunday afternoon, very close to closing for Bunnings.  But I got in my car and went to the closest one to us (not the one I'd been to earlier that day!) and put together my 12 paint chips.  I didn't feel so bad this time - 12 is a much more respectable number than 90!

Then I came home and filled in my gaps and I was good to go!

After that I just got some craft glue and started sticking them all down as neatly as possible.  As it turned out, I ended up with little gaps at the bottom, but I sooooo wasn't doing this again.  I was digging all the different shades of blue, thinking how clever I was.

Then it was just a matter of putting those panels up in the cupboard door inlays.  I tucked the edges between the door and the inlay, then just sticky taped them on.  (This was never going to be the permanent solution, just an interim until I could afford the world's most beautiful wallpaper!)

And here is the end product....

Do I love it?  Ahhhh.... no!  Sadly, from a distance all my shades of blue are lost under that translucency and it just looks like two wardrobes that belong in a little boys' bedroom or playroom.... Bugger!

Oh well - given the shortening of my life by several years that occurred when I had to do those dashes into Bunnings, I decided we're just going to have to live with it.  At least it did solve the problem of covering up all my crap in the cupboards, which is great!  And to be fair, they don't look totally awful (they just look very out of place when you view the area in context with the rest of the house).

So end of story.  Happy(ish) ending... but could be happier.  Would I do it again?  No (unless I wanted to do it for a kid's room, in which case I'd be back at Bunnings in a heartbeat).  And will I be applying this method to my nine drawers in the bedroom?  No, I will not.

But just when you thought that was the end of the story (because, in fairness, I did say it was!) something wonderful has happened.  No, I didn't win lotto (still got fingers, toes and eyes crossed for that though!)  My husband has recently had a little time off work and decided to get handy with his paintbrushes... and lets just say that corner of the home is looking quite different!  So different in fact that I'm thinking I don't want to cover that beautifully painted area with cupboards any longer... I might like to try something else!  Check it out.... the back of the cupboards is to the left of the photo (obviously we moved them out of the way to paint).

What will I try in this newly painted corner, I hear you ask?  You'll just have to wait and see...  I know I always say this (and rarely deliver!) but we're hoping to make our little transformation this weekend.  So hopefully we'll have something wonderful to share next week!

Bye for now :)