Our 1880s Italianate farmhouse suffered a serious attack of 80s pine, sometime circa the 1980s no doubt. One of the hardest hit areas was what could have been an otherwise lovely eat-in kitchen. Armed with some paint, DIY prowess and Instagram inspiration I set out to rectify the situation. One of the major focal areas was installing a budget DIY cedar shim backsplash as part of the kitchen makeover.

Please enjoy these before photos. They will give you a true appreciation of the task that lay before me. It wasn’t just the pine, it was the sheer amount of competing wood tones and types. It was the glass panels and the brass hardware. It was the brown laminate countertops.

BEFORE

Overhauling this room really came down to painting the cabinetry, removing the stained glass window, painting the beadboard, a countertop refinishing kit, and installing some really nifty features like the herringbone cedar shim backsplash and open shelving.

The cedar shim backsplash is the coolest and cheapest part of this kitchen makeover. It was accomplished in a morning with $30 worth of cedar shims and a nail gun.

THE AFTER