Mum copies Monica from Friends’ kitchen for a fraction of the price using bargains from charity shops & Amazon
IT’S been over 17 years since Friends ended (can you believe it?!), but it’s still one of our favourite shows of all time.
It’s regularly being crowned as one of the UK’s most streamed series, so it’s no surprise that the series still influences several aspects of its fans’ lives, from their humour to their fashion choices.
And for one DIY-loving mum, the series even inspired her home’s interior design.
Desiree Elias, 34, a mum of two from Urbana, Ohio, had always dreamed of a kitchen just like Monica’s in the hit TV show.
When she bought her own home, she set to work transforming the plain kitchen into an amazing colourful kitchen just like Monica and Chandler’s.
Desiree works in childcare and she stocked up on accessories from Amazon and thrift stores for the project.
She also used budget materials such as Valspar paint and self-adhesive wallpaper.
She enlisted the help of friends to help her complete the project and it cost her just £731.
Desiree told LatestDeals.co.uk: "Monica’s kitchen from the show Friends has always been my dream kitchen, and my husband agreed when we bought our first home that we could make it a reality.
"Our house is pre-1900s, so our renovation went a little bit further than we planned.
"When we took down the upper cabinets, we found a giant hole in the wall behind them, so we went to the studs and did drywall as well.
"The lower cabinets had also had some water damage before we bought the house.
"When we started pulling them out they started cracking and separating, so we had to buy new ones.
“We then thought that we might as well replace the flooring while we are at it.
“We purchased unfinished lower cabinets and luxury vinyl interlocking flooring.
“The next step was to insulate in the dark because of a bad storm and being the only house on the block to lose power.
“We then put down new floor by flashlight due to the storm, and primed and painted the walls.
“Then we installed new lower cabinets and did a temporary countertop out of plywood.
“We then painted all the lower cabinets in rushing stream blue and added knobs and drawer pulls.
“We painted the iconic Friends purple door along with two other walls, then painted the pantry door.
“We painted one of the old upper cabinets yellow as well as a built-in shelf.
“Then we moved the electrical and repair plumbing with some difficulty, feeding the wires through old rock walls in a not very well lit crawl space.
“Then we connected the dishwasher and stove.
“After that, we hung the textured brick self-adhesive wallpaper and one yellow wall cabinet.
“We soon realised we did not order enough and had to wait for two new rolls to come.
"It took five in total to complete the look.
“We then built the open shelves and bar area from blonde plywood.
"Our friend built the upper shelf and breakfast bar in their basement for more room and easy access to tools.
"He used a table saw and set up jigs to make them all the same size, then he used wood glue and a Kreg Jig to assemble them.
"He found the studs and hung them using the Kreg Jig again to hide the screws and to not have a hanging board.
“We then installed the countertop, sink, breakfast bar area and open shelves.
“We had to buy the pendant light, the Friends frame with the sticker, the textured wallpaper, flooring and unfinished cabinets.
"One small lamp shade was found on Amazon and the big one above the sink was found at a thrift store for 73p.”
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Although Desiree and her husband came into some unexpected surprises along the way, she was very impressed with how much it cost her to transform her kitchen.
She explained: "Even with all the exciting surprises and unplanned parts of the remodel, we came in just under £750.
"We did all the work ourselves with two wonderful friends who know how to do all the things and guided us through it, even laying flooring by flashlight at 10pm when the power for just our block went out!"
Desiree is over the moon with how her dream kitchen turned out, and says it helps her channel her inner Monica Geller.
She added: “I’m still in shock every time I walk into the kitchen because I can’t believe we actually did it.
"I don’t like messes or being disorganised in true Monica fashion, but all of the chaos was totally worth it!
"We have two boys who helped as much as they could when we were doing the kitchen.
“It took a lot more steps than originally planned, but we knew we were going to find some surprises in a house that was built pre-1900.
"We all worked as constantly as we could around busy work schedules and kids' school and practices, but we somehow managed to get it done in around two weeks.”
Meanwhile, I saved a whopping £6k transforming my bland garden into fairy lit haven using bargains from B&M and Home Bargains.
Also, people never believe what’s inside our tiny van, we spent months doing it up & it’s even got a home CINEMA.
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