DIY: How to build a Quick Budget-Friendly Kitchen with Concrete Blocks and Cement
this is the kitchen in casa saguaro, and as you can see, it needs a bit of love.
after just coming off of a kitchen reno in our california bungalow, neither one of us are exactly chomping at the bit to do another full gut job at the moment, nor do we have the budget, but the mold smell in this kitchen is atrocious, and we have to do something about it.
we tried doing a deep clean, but i just walked in and that dreadful smell is back. is it behind the cabinets, coming through the walls, do we have a water leak? i’ve wracked my brain for weeks thinking of how i can improve this kitchen without a full gut reno. i was thinking if i take the doors off, at least that will allow some airflow, and maybe it will help? so i took a few of the doors off, and that looks so weird. then i thought, maybe if i just take down the uppers, leave the lowers and that will lighten it up a bit and make it feel less crowded. whatever is back in that corner behind the sink is haunting me. i know there is black mold, i just need to find the source.
right now, were between a rock and a hard place. we’re trying to open our doors for guests as quickly as possible, and basically out of funds. however, no amount of cleaning is remedy’ing this mold situation.
these cabinets are made from particle board, and particle board and humidity do not mix. i can see where they’ve expanded from moisture in places, and there’s just no salvagin them. my only thought is that if we can rip them out, we can quickly build concrete bases and get open.
the other thing that was throwing me off was this tiny doorway separating the kitchen from the living room. i never understood kitchen doors. i mean, i get that it’s nice to block the sound, but this space is just too divided. this floor needed to be as open of a floor plan as i could get, so this had to go as well.
the gigantic 80’s dining table and cream leather chairs, yeah those need to go as well. but this corner we’ll save for another day. for now, we’ll haul out the table and try to sell it on facebook or something.
after a few weeks of deliberation, i finally have strader convinced that we need to demo everything out and handle this moisture problem.
i mean, look at this. gross. the second we got the uppers taken down, we could finally get a glimpse at what we were dealing with. black mold was covering the walls behind the cabinets, and the particle board was swelling with moisture.
ugh i can still smell it when i look at this photo haha.
first things first, we’re going to spray the walls with vinegar to try and kill as much mold as possible. believe it or not, vinegar actually kills mold much better than bleach.
now that we have the upper cabinets down, we can finally see more of what’s going on underneath. and i can already see raw, unsealed concrete, i wish i would have taken better pics, but you can see a littlt bit, which i think is the main issue.
oh, and termites in the kitchen door frame. that’s a fun little bonus.
so now we’re in agreement that this whole are is pretty much fucked, it’s go time. we’ve brought in our friend who mainly does microcement and some odd construction jobs to work side by side with strader. in our experience, when trying to spend as little as money as possible, this is the best route. avoiding contractors, and hiring one skilled tradesmen with an affordable day rate. that way strader can work with him, learn from him, and keep him motivated and on task.
walking in and seeing this door getting blown open is one of the best feelings. ahh i’m finally feeling excited.
i’d love to rip out more of this wall, but we can only go as far as the radiator, because neither of them know how to remove it or cap it, but anything is better than that tiny door we had before, so i’m happy.
our friend really wants to do micro-cement, and in that case we can keep the tile because you can apply micro-cement directly over tile. but strader and i have been talking and i think if we can just do white cement and paint, we can save a ton of money on labor. so we’re going to demo out the tile now.
and now goes the rest of the kitchen. don’t worry, that light fixutre is not staying!
so now that we have some of the lower cabinets taken out, you can see where the major issue lies. this wall behind the lowers is raw concrete. concrete is extremely porous, and to have this behind the cabinets in this climate is insane.
this part of the wall is also underground, which means moisture has been coming though this part of the wall since this kitchen was built.
this definitely wasn’t built up to any sort of code.
and now the tile comes down, yay!
now for the fun part. the guys quickly got to work this morning building the base cabinets using hollow bricks and cement. and i’m on the hunt for an affordable sink. my vision is one of those incredible rough stone sinks, and i see them everywhere here, it’s just finding where they sell them. i headed out to this incredible antique shop by our house, and look at these amazing finds!
I want this triple sink soooo bad, but i can already tell it’s too big for the space.
that’s when i remembered we literally have the same one, just smaller sitting in our garden collecting garden hose water run-off. all the guys have to do is figure out how to dig it out and move it, and bam we’ll have a free sink!
i came home from pilates and look! They managed to move it and install it! it’s so beautiful, and i’m obsessed!
now that the sink is sorted and placed, we need to finish the cabinet bases. to save money on labor, we’re not going to build the cabinet shelves from concrete, but instead use wood.
today we finished the columns, so now we prep the counters to pour concrete. we’re using insulation pieces and wood scraps to frame it out.
i think we’re saving alot of money on this kitchen by skipping the microcement. we’re using white concrete instead and painting it with a durable, cleanable paint. if we decide to do micro-cement down the road, we can always add it, but for now, this is perfect.
we’re also using (but i forgot to take a photo), these little lightweight cement balls, i’m not sure what they’re called, but they come in a huge bag, and we added them to the concrete to fill it in and make the counter lighter.
a bit messy, but looking so good!
the mess is definitely giving us both anxiety, and it’s taking a bit longer than we thought, but i can see the light at the end of the tunnel and we’re so close.
now we’re prepping the walls for white cement. now lets talk about white cement. the benefits of using white cement are that it’s waterproof, and it’s anti-microbial. meaning it will keep the moisture out, and it will repell bacteria and mold. so if you live in a humid climate like we do, this is a great option. especially for bathrooms too.
strader is going to kill me, but this morning i realized they forgot to pour the concrete for the cabinet bases. so now they have to go back and pour those.
so they poured the cement for the cabinets that won’t hold appliances, and we wait for this to cure. he wasn’t happy but we needed that. my biggest pet peeve on these rustic cement kitchens is when builders don’t add a base. you can’t set items on the floor, that’s just weird.
and today we’re installing the faucet! i chose an unlaquered brass faucet from morocco.
ahhh, it’s finally coming together!
this week we’re applying sealer to the counters. in our last kitchen renovation we did microcement counters and even after layers and layers of sealer, they still stained. this time we went with concrete counters. we’re using the same sealer you would use for microcement. let’s hope these are a bit more durable.
and even though we used white concrete for the cabinets, we’re painting them with a durable and cleanable paint.
awww, baby scout. she approves.
ahhh i love it! it’s rustic, organic and exactly what i wanted. The goal for this kitchen was never perfection, it was rustic, organic, inexpensive and mold-free!!
oh, and don’t worry, the light fixture is still going away, and that plumbing job under the sink we changed out as well - that was a temporary “pipe” until we could get the right one.
and many of you have asked why we put a washing machine in the kitchen. it’s pretty standard in europe to have the clothes washer in the kitchen, and no dryer. there was a dishwasher and clothes washer in here prior, but we took out the dishwasher and kept the clothes washer for now. there wasn’t any other place for us to put it, so there it stays.
and i found this cute retro fridge, it works great in this space.
the only hiccup now is that the carpenter just came out to measure for floating shelves, cabinet shelves and doors, and when he sent over the quote, let me know he can’t come to do the work until August, which is right in our high season of rentals, and there isn’t anyone else here i would trust to do this job.
luckilly though, our friend mark stopped by and said if we bought a few sheets of cheap pine, and i stained them, he could cut them and fit temporary shelves for us. he used little white “L” brackets to attach them.
what a life saver, now we can at least get open and this will hold us over until we can get the carpenter out to do the full job.
my range from smeg also just arrived and our ventless hood.
eventually i’d love to cover this with plaster and a rustic wood beam, but this is great for now, so as of now, we’re officially done with phase one of our kitchen remodel in casa saguaro.
ways we saved money on this project:
materials - opting for less labor intensive materials like white cement
footprint - keeping the footprint the same - not changing the layout saves so much time and money, go like for like
salvaging - finding our kitchen sink in the garden
friends - hiring a friend for the job and having a friend help us with the shelves
now i always set out to keep track of expenses so I can give an accurate account of what we spent, but once again, i did not. but Here’s what i remember and i think it’s pretty accurate.
the carpenter quoted us around €2,500 for the floating wood shelves, and lower shelves and cabinet doors. which now looking at the fact that we only spent €5,500 so far, i’m not sure we’re going to go with that quote. at this point i really would just like floating shelves above so i can place all of our dishes up there., and i think we will shop around for those.
and here are the bricks we used for the columns, they’re standard building bricks here in portugal.
for our next kitchen reno, i’m dying to use siporex cellular concrete blocks, have you used them? if so, i’d love to hear about your project!
I’ve been following @Siporex_france on instagram for a while now, and the projects they post on there look so easy and like i could do them. I’ve never seen the blocks in person, but you can cut them with a hand saw, drill them, build pretty much anything out of them. i couldn’t find them in time for this project, but for our next project, I’m definitely giving them a go.
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