The kitchen at the East Aurora home of Janice and Joe Tobolski could be called the January Kitchen. Why? Because’s it’s clutter-free, organized and accented with touches of whimsy –just the sort of decorating goals one may envision in the new year.

Yet this makeover wasn’t tied into New Year’s at all.

Instead, the project began when the couple considered selling their home and wanted to make their outdated kitchen – with its harvest gold sink and old white-painted cabinets –more presentable.

While refreshing their kitchen, the retired couple began looking at other homes but soon realized how much they enjoyed the location, atmosphere and convenience of their village home of 25 years.

So they decided to stay put –and not only spruce up the kitchen but personalize it as well.

“We like making things, so that’s when the fun began,” said Janice, who, along with her husband, worked for years at Fisher-Price in mechanical design and later ran a photography business.

What they got rid of: the old floor, sink, cabinet doors and hardware.

What they kept: pale yellow counter-tops, appliances, recessed lighting and the cabinets themselves.

The project, which cost about $2,000, began like this:

Over the course of about a month, Joe refinished the kitchen cabinets –cleaning, scraping, sanding, stripping the exterior to bare wood, sealing the knots, priming and repainting them bright white, inside and out.

“I used a semi-gloss, water-based enamel for easy cleanup and durability,” he said.

He also built new frame-and-panel doors to replace the poor-quality ones; rebuilt the drawers; made new organizers for spices and utensils; and replaced the hinges, drawer pulls and door handles.

An important step: Once the doors were removed from the cabinets, Janice was able to examine the cabinets’ contents and eliminate unused items.

This also was a good time to rethink organization, which helped create a more functional kitchen when items were put back. The cabinet above the coffee maker now stocks beverage-related items so everything is in one place and within easy reach, for example.

They chose a cheery yellow paint for the walls — part of a new citrus color theme — and had neutral-colored vinyl flooring that imitates tile installed. Joe had previously painted the harvest gold dishwasher and range hood with white appliance paint, but cleaned and touched up those as well.

Janice made valances for the windows, using lemon-, orange-and lime-colored fabrics, accented with black and white.

To jazz up a white storage tower next to the refrigerator, she custom-made six fabric-covered drawers from corrugated cardboard with plywood fronts to fit into some of the openings.

Another shelf now holds a napkin holder she made and covered with the same black-and- white checked fabric used on the window treatments. She also used the fabrics to embellish a wall clock that was retrieved from the basement and now hangs above the refrigerator.

But she wasn’t finished. “I looked for a colorful utensil crock, but found none that I liked. That’s when I discovered Designing Dish here in East Aurora. Genevieve [Turner-Hapeman], the proprietor, gave me a few basic lessons to get me started on decorating a spoon rest, four mugs and a utensil crock,” said Janice, who is particularly fond of polka dots.

Visiting the Dollar Tree and finding black utensils accented in citrus colors for the new crock was another windfall.

And great effort went into decorating the wall near the table.

The idea: To create and hang a “menu” to make the eating nook feel like a diner.

She and Joe made a list of some of their favorite foods and East Aurora specialties, including Charlie’s Diner for breakfast, Pasquale’s for pizza, Taste for coffee, East Aurora Farmers’ Market for produce and Aurora Theatre for popcorn.

“Then I brewed, scrambled, fried, toasted, grilled, simmered, baked, chopped, scooped, sliced and popped my way through our ideal menu. Joe helped me set up all the photographs and made suggestions, such as an appropriate font and a tablecloth [polka dots] background that added a fun feel to our wall decoration,” she said.

The end result: A kitchen that Joe described as “fun and personal, colorful and cohesive.”

Even if the food photography — which includes a luscious- looking Tunnel of Fudge cake — makes you hungry!