Static Caravan Budget Kitchen Makeover for £1500

I’m continuing with my static caravan blog posts, but before I do that, make sure you’ve read the intro post about how all this came about, and some of the gruesome before photos!

Ok, now you’ve read that, I’m starting the individual room makeover posts with the kitchen!

Lets re cap. Here’s what we were working with: (yikes!)

It was mouldy and falling apart. We found used condoms underneath one of the cabinets. It was baaaad.

The oroginal plan was to asimply replace the doors and worktops and tart the old girl up. But, as explained in the intro post, the floor rot was more advanced than we realised so we ended up completely gutting it and starting again.

Phase one

We were given the carcasses from 2 friends’ kitchens who were renovating for free. Upon moving in, we cobbled these together and placed some OSB on top for crude kitchen worktops. We had electricity, cold water and a camping hob.

This is the kitchen we had for 6 months. We were also sleeping in here too hence the mattress!

Side note: Even when you’re mid-renovating, you can still make parts of it beautiful. I kept it tidy, I had my nice kitchen items out, my nice linen, art. And I always had flowers and scented candles in the van too. If you’re renovating, you need this more than most!

Phase two

Last summer, we got it to the ‘nearly finished’ stage. We installed the Ikea worktop, sink, steaming water tap and tiled the kitchen. I also sourced a lovely scrubbed pine kitchen table on Facebook Marketplace. It stayed like this (with open cupboards) for another 8 months. Here it is:

Phase three

Fast forward to this Spring where we made and attached the cabinet doors which marked the finishing of the kitchen!

The finished kitchen

Rough cost breakdown

• Kitchen carcasses- free, from 2 friends kitchen reno’s

• Ikea worktop £90

• Oven £150 from friend’s kitchen reno

• Sink £25

• Tiles free

• Tiling adhesive and grout £40

• Fridge and freezer £40

• Value of paint for cabinets and fridge and freezer (used elsewhere so hard to quantify but approx) £120

• Value of kitchen tap £899

• Value of brass kitchen handles and knobs £144

£1508 is total value.

Some sources:

• The following was all from Facebook Marketplace (so much of this reno was from Marketplace!):

  • The beaut tiles were free (!)

  • The wood for the cabinet doors

  • The fridge and freezer

  • The sink

  • Kitchen table and chairs

  • The bamboo Roman blinds

  • The pair of vintage yellow jugs
    

• The worktop is laminate, the Ekbacken from Ikea

• The kitchen cupboard carcasses and oven were from 2 friends who were renovating their kitchens

• Our green light shade was from Norse Vintage

• The wooden shelves were all made from a table we found on the street

• My fluted bowl on the shelf is from Rosa Bond

• The dark grey crockery was from House of Fraser

• The following were provided as PR products:

• The cupboards are painted in Constance Moss by Frenchic Paint *

• Our steaming water tap is from Abode Home*

• Our new tea jars are from Alice In Scandiland shop *

• Our brass handles are from Dowsing & Reynolds *