Farrow and Ball Cornforth White Kitchen photos...part 1

Just looking back at photos of one of my favourite home makeovers-sorry about the long post! We finally did finish our kitchen makeover- I must take some more photos of it.
I still love the cabinet colour which is Farrow and Ball's Cornforth White. It's a very, very pale light gray, but it's a soft, warm grey. We used acrylic eggshell paint, and it's held up really well.
Looking back, I can't believe we ever got this makeover finished! The reason it took so long was because the OH did it all himself, from start to finish, after work and on weekends. He made the cabinets, collected and fitted the granite worktops, fitted the sink and taps, laid the floor, made the false chimney breast to hide the oven extractor hood-literally everything!
He's not a carpenter by trade, just self-taught and very handy at most DIY things. Usually he loves projects, but this one really started to grind us down, because there was so much to do! We really did lose enthusiasm and motivation three-quarters of the way through. Still, a lack of funds meant that if we wanted a bespoke-style kitchen on our tiny budget, we would have to do it ourselves...
It's not perfect, it's fairly small, but we like it. And similar inset wooden kitchens in magazines usually seem to have cost at least £15,000 upwards, whereas ours cost about £1200 including the granite work tops.
To save money, we kept a lot of things we already had, but improvised and improved them. For instance, we couldn't afford to change our white washing machine, dishwasher and fridge freezer so we sprayed them with Plasticote chrome appliance spray. Also, they worked perfectly, so I couldn't justify replacing them, even if we'd had the funds. The cans of spray paint are brilliant- there's not a chip on anything we sprayed a couple of years down the line.
We were so impressed with the chrome spray paint, we sprayed our gold ceiling spotlights with it too. Now they are chrome, and look much more modern. And it was a lot easier and cheaper then replacing them. We also sprayed the cabinet hinges and the brown fan heater in the cabinet plinths chrome too. Just make sure you get the heat resistant spray designed to spray ovens!
The granite work tops cost £240 if I remember correctly on eBay for three 3m lengths. Luckily, it was a grey colour that went with our colour scheme. We had to collect them ourselves but only from 10 miles away. Lifting them onto our van was an experience I won't forget in a long time....
We got them cut at our local stonemasons yard- the OH drew a detailed template plan of where to cut them, and where to put the sink cut outs and tap holes. I held my breath when they came back, but they were perfect. Best of all, they only charged £150- I suppose it made a change from doing gravestones.
We had just enough work top to do our kitchen, down to the last cm. If money were no object, I would love white Carrara marble work tops, but I am more than satisfied with the grey granite, plus it's very tough!
Part 2 tomorrow!
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