A new kitchen for $90.00

Here is our $90.00 kitchen re-do.
It all started with a dislike of our oak cabinets, the impracticality of buying new ones, and a can of paint.  I was determined to have a new kitchen.  It was scary to start - I knew once I touched that first cabinet door with the sander that I was committing to completing the entire kitchen.  So, I picked up a piece of sandpaper, closed my eyes, and did it - yikes!
It was a pretty detailed and involved process, which I say I will never do again, but in fact probably would if it means getting the same results.
The doors and drawers were removed, washed, and then taken outside and sanded with a power sander (and by hand in the tight spots.)
I applied three coats of primer to each surface - lightly sanding in between coats.  I thought I could get lazy and skip this stage, but when touching the rough spots, I knew that I had come this far - might as well do it right.
I then applied three coats of paint to each surface, again sanding in between.
When it was time to do the foundations of the cabinets I created a tent - using an old sheet draped from the counter, over some chairs, and down to the floor to stop the sawdust from taking over my house.  I put on goggles and tied a towel over my nose and mouth and crawled in with my sander.
My husband drilled the holes for the hardware after the doors were re-hung, and he and my dad hung the crown moulding.  It was very labor intensive, but not very expensive, and I am so, so happy with the end result!

This is the other side of my kitchen.  Just about everything you see came from a garage sale -
The dresser, $20.00, painted from black to tan
The shelves above the dresser - $5.00, painted from pink to cream
The little boxes on the shelves - 50 cents total - painted from raw metal to cream
The pots, urns, picture frames, etc. - 25 cents to $1.00 each
The framed print - $1.00
The checkerboard plaque and curved mirror over the door -50 cents each

This is the true color of the kitchen walls and cabinets.  The bar stools were $2.00 each because the seats needed to be replaced - some scrap wood and a chair pad took care of that.  The chandelier was $2.00.  It's been decorated with plastic "crystal" Christmas tree decorations to add more sparkle.  The crown moulding was purchased at a garage sale - $10.00 total, and was enough to do the kitchen and a wall of the dining area, which I'll post at a later time.  You should have seen me walking down the street during a busy community garage sale, 8 foot long pieces of moulding over my shoulder, trying to navigate the cars, shoppers, and tables of glassware without causing any damage - quite a scene!  (but all worth it when I look at my kitchen, and a design element that I simply would not have without garage sales.)

The widow arch is my favorite part of the kitchen.
A good side view of my gorgeous window arch - with free labor (thanks dad!) you could say this arch cost me a little bit less than $2.00.
Curved moulding was 50 cents
Crown moulding was part of the big buy of $10.00 - so this part, maybe $1.00?
Paint was negligible - I used what I already had
scrap wood cost me nothing
I should also mention that the wooden decoration on the sink front is also a garage sale find ($1.00) and so are the drawer and door pulls ($3.00 for all.)  I had to buy my door and drawer pulls at two different sales, a year apart, to find the color and price that I wanted.  While the door pulls ($1.00 total) are a bit different from the drawer pulls ($2.00 total) in design, they are the same color, and the difference only adds to the uniqueness.

This is a picture of my curtain.  I looked long and hard for a black and white curtain for my kitchen.  Finally one great day out garage saleing with my mom she pulled a pretty black and white dress out of a 50 cent box (there is a picture of the dress below).  I cut off the skirt and sewed it straight across the top, then used pre-existing clips and my old curtain rod to hang it over my sink.  The black ribbon ties were the sash of the dress, cut into two.  

Here is my curtain, when it was still a dress.

My kitchen.  I love it.  I figure my out of pocket cost for this re-do was about $90.00.  I did not count items I already had, or moved into the kitchen from other rooms (like the dresser) in the total.  My big purchases were paint, the sander, and the crown moulding.  My dream is to install black and white checkered flooring - or maybe to paint the floor - we'll see.

Here is what we started with.