Interior: Charming cottage makeover

When Nova Scotia native Stacey Haines and her husband, Steve, set out to buy a house in their adopted city of Greensboro, North Carolina, they knew exactly what they didn't want. "We didn't want a ranch house, and we knew we didn't want new construction. And we didn't want to spend a lot of money," Stacey says.

After four months of seeing all the wrong houses, an agent called about a little place that needed work. "It looked like it belonged on a beach in Nova Scotia. I wanted to pick it up and take it there!" says Stacey. With little hesitation, the couple snapped it up.

"We could see the problems, but we didn't have a lot of money to fix them," recalls Stacey. So husband and wife set out to do the work themselves.


Kitchen "The walls were decorated with that 1980s blue stencilling." Stacey says. "And the cupboards were sponge-painted in a dull pink." Turning to yard sales, thrift shops and dollar stores, Stacey and Steve revived the kitchen. To brighten up the walls and cupboards, Stacey used paint in a clear bright green, something she now describes as a happy accident. "The paint colour looked a lot more yellow than I'd expected. But it was so cheery, I left it."

Costs

• Paint: $100
• Floor: $50 (Steve found the peel-and-stick tiles at the dollar store and installed them himself)
• Wallpaper: $5 (found at a yard sale)
• Island: $25 (bought at the Salvation Army)
• Armoire: $400 (from Red Egg warehouse sale)