A mum-of-two has created her dream kitchen worth £7,000 for a bargain £170 - with a little help from her family.
Laura Baxter, 31, posted the snaps of her amazing creation on Facebook and racked up more than 17,000 likes for her work.
Despite attracting a lot of attention for her revamp on a budget, Laura admits the kitchen was her first ever DIY project, insisting she couldn't have done it without her husband Cameron, 33, and children Robin, six, and Rose, three.
To tackle lockdown boredom, Laura encouraged the family to get creative on their kitchen project.
Laura says: "We moved in four years ago, but the previous occupants had been here since 2008 and had never changed the kitchen - so it had been in for at least 12 years.
"It was very dark, with just one small window and a black worktop and black floor.
"The units were brown and boring, which we felt didn't reflect the personalities of Cameron and myself, as we like bright interiors and quirky design."
After searching around for new fittings, Laura was disheartened to learn the kitchen of her dreams would cost an eye-watering £7,000.
Adamant not to be defeated, Laura got creative and decided to embark on the project herself - calling on Cameron and the kids to get involved when she needed a helping hand.
However, she hit a bump in the road in May 2020, when "everyone else had the same idea" to start their own DIY projects, and couldn't get her hands on the paint she wanted. But savvy Laura had an idea.
She said: "We had some white garage floor paint left over.
"We didn't like our black worktop and because the garage floor paint was heavy-duty and thick, I wondered if it would stick to it.
"It was a real budget job, as was the whole project really, using leftovers as much as possible."
Luckily, Laura's instincts were right.
"Our worktop had a real shiny finish, it was like a marble effect, so I thought it might work and, if it didn't we decided to get a second-hand worktop. But it stuck really nicely."
After giving the surfaces a new lease of life, Laura got to work on sorting out the kitchen floor, her biggest challenge.
"I painted the floor - it was like black slate tiles - and I painted them in white.
"Then I got a stencil with grey paint to give the pattern - having to do each tile one at a time," she said.
But instead of complaining about the hard work, Laura claims it was "therapeutic."
She said: "It felt like therapy and 'me time' and our kitchen looks so much bigger and brighter now."
Laura roped the kids in to do their bit too, asking them to sugar scrub down the kitchen cupboard doors. would say, 'Come on kids, get the sponge out,' and they were always up for helping.
"Then we primed them with a really cheap undercoat from Wilko, and finally painted them blue.
"We replaced the door handles with some cheap ones off Amazon, but the new ones only needed one hole, so we had to do some filling and painting where the old ones had two."
Once the cupboards, surfaces and the floor were taken care of, Laura repainted the walls which had got grubby over the years from kids' handprints.
After just two weeks of gruelling DIY, Laura's transformed kitchen was finished.
"We had to get a move on, because it was very disruptive with the kitchen out of action.
"You don't realise how much you go in and out of your kitchen until you can't do it," she explained.
Nearly a year on from the rebirth of her kitchen, Laura's chuffed with how it's lasted.
"It's all held up fine and everything still looks fab. You wouldn't know what we'd used," she gushed.
"We just weren't in a position to spend huge amounts, so I'm really proud of the achievement.
"And when friends came over during that brief reopening in the middle of the lockdowns they were all really impressed," she added.
Since revamping the kitchen, Laura is keen to spend as much time in there as possible.
She said: "Because I'm the main cook, I regard the kitchen as my room. It is now my happy place, and I'm happy to be in there."
