Stainless Steel Appliances for Less

No, this isn't a post about some great deal I got on stainless steel appliances. Nor is it all good news but I figure I might save someone out there a little trouble with this post on the good and bad points of the stainless steel looking contact paper.

It all started with an old ugly range hood and a new plain dishwasher.

Oh, and a sick little boy who just wanted to lie on the couch all day watching Thomas the Train and Caillou. Normally this isn't an option but he's really nasty sick, getting over croup kind of sick and I didn't much feel like urging him to move around. Unfortunately I can only watch so much TV before I have to craft out some energy though so by early afternoon I was pacing around looking for something to do.

Then it hit me.

We ran to Home Depot late in the afternoon and grabbed 2 rolls of stainless steel looking contact paper (and a bunch of other stuff, HD is my weakness). As soon as he went to bed I started planning my attack on the hood. I cut one big rectangle, peeled off the backing, stuck it down, smoothed it out, cut some edges, trimmed some corners, said a few bad words, cursed my dull blade and sticky scissors and in the end, produced this:

I stood back and thought, Hey, that's not bad. It looks a bit more updated now and that's cool. Then I glanced at the fridge and after a few irrational flashes of thought convinced myself to leave it alone. Then I looked over at the dishwasher and figured that would be a good test appliance to see if I might eventually attack the fridge.

The picture really doesn't do it justice, it doesn't look quite right. Maybe it's that I've never seen a stainless and white dishwasher, maybe it's the gigantic seam running horizontally across the middle, I'm not really sure but I won't be wasting any more of my time or contact paper on the fridge.

So, here's what I learned:
1) It's annoying but worth it to cover the hood
2) Don't use a dull knife
3) Clean the scissors after cutting something sticky
4) Don't bother with larger appliances
5) Crafting is still fun when I fail (although more fun when I don't)
6) I need to do the dishes so maybe I can get a full kitchen picture instead of carefully planning out all my shots to avoid our dinner plates on the counter

Well, there you have it, 2 contact paper projects. Each roll of this cool paper costs around $10 and I used about a roll and a half. I'll be looking for cool things to do with the remainder of it now.

Thank you for reading,