Free Refurbished Cabinet

I answered an ad on craigslist for this cabinet. They were asking $25 for it, and it needed some sanding and some paint.

Losing kitchen cupboard space

Vickie made a comment about losing valuable cupboard space in the kitchen. We did consider the loss of cupboard space, but ultimately came to several conclusions:

1. Most of the cupboard space we lost was being used for food storage and paper goods storage.
- the food storage got moved downstairs once we got the food storage shelves organized
- the paper goods storage could easily be stored in several other places: above the fridge and in one of the remaining cupboards that had also had food stored inside

2. Some of the space was used for our pyrex dishes.
- after moving all the food storage items downstairs, I had room for the pyrex in one of the cupboards above the counter

3. There's a massive waste of space above the fridge (see above pic).
- we'll be building a cupboard with a couple shelves above the fridge to better organize the stuff currently stored there and to make room for a few other things.

4. I will probably build a simple open cupboard to place on the wall between the bay window and the door.
- if I do this, I'll put my Fiesta ware in the cupboard. The rainbow colors would work well in an open cupboard. Not sure how easy it would be to actually get dishes in and out of it though, since it's above the counter and I'm short. Thoughts?

5. The cupboards are poorly designed, like most I've seen. I have plans to add pull out shelves at various heights in all the lower cupboards and the pantry. This should allow for a much more efficient use of space in the cupboards and make it easier to find things without having to pull everything out of the cupboard.

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Since our kitchen isn't overflowing with storage, taking out the hanging cupboard has forced us to be more efficient with what we put in our cupboards. Do we need it? Do we use it regularly? Can we get rid of it?

Creative food storage

Our food storage shelves (purchased from IKEA) are currently in our basement workshop room. Someday we'll have a storage room just for food and such, but we're not there yet. In the meantime, I finally have a central location to put our food storage- it's no longer scattered among various kitchen cupboards and boxes in the laundry room. Now I can see at a glance what I'm running low on. So nice!

The problem with sharing the space is that whenever I cut wood sawdust gets EVERYWHERE. I tried draping a dropcloth over the shelves, but it was way too long and made it hard to get to anything on the shelves.

So I cut three dropcloth panels to size and stuck them to the shelves.

I used the existing hems in the fabric so the only raw edges are at the top, covered by the velcro.

I had 20' of sticky-back velcro that I've had for awhile, so I used that. I hate sewing sticky-back velcro because it gums up the needle and makes the thread break, which is why I still had 20' of it in my stash.

So I used staples. I used my staple gun to staple one side to the shelf and I used my regular stapler to staple the other side to the fabric.

The top edge of the drop cloth panel.

I added a couple tabs to hold the panels together along the edges- I just stapled those as well.

It's not the prettiest job ever, but it made use of materials I already had (the velcro and the dropcloth), it decreased my stash of stuff, and it works great. Can't beat that!

Updated sling bookshelf

I made this bookshelf for LMS a year and a half or so ago (here it is in her old room).

But I decided it needed a bit more color before I finished her new room.

I mod podged some polka dot fabric to the sides, which gives it a bit of pop against the white beadboard.

A quick and easy spot of color!

Lamp for LMS's bedroom

When I finished LMS's nightstand, I also finally finished a lamp to sit on top of it.

The lamp started out looking like this:

The lamp and shade came from Lowes. I looked at Goodwill, but the thrift stores in our area are very hit-or-miss when it comes to finding what I want when I want.

The shade was off white, so I covered it in a thin white fabric. Remember the ruffled wall in LMS's last room?

When we moved, I saved the fabric and ruffle - can't let it go to waste! I used some of the ruffle on the top, bottom, and back seam of the shade.

Cute, quick, and easy.

Nightstand for Little Miss Sunshine

I finally got LMS's nightstand built- almost a year after we moved into the house.

I followed this plan from Ana White. Love her site! The only change I made to the plan was to add 6 inches to the legs so it would be tall enough for LMS's bed. If she ever gets a shorter bed we just have to chop off the bottom parts of the legs and it's still completely useable.

I thought I took pics while I was building it, but I can't find them, so you only get pics of the finished product.

I found cute knobs at Hobby Lobby and painted the whole thing with white chalk paint (so easy to use and great coverage!).

All set up in her room. I think it makes the room look more finished and put together.

LMS is excited to have a nightstand to pile all her "important" stuff on :)

Kitchen Demo

We had this hanging cabinet in our kitchen that divided the kitchen from the eating area.

Mr M always had to be careful not to konk his head on it, and it made everything feel small and cramped and closed-in.

So, last weekend while Mr M was at drill I decided the cabinet had to come down. (we'd discussed it and were agreed that it would happen, just not when it would happen)

So much better. The light will probably get reinstalled since we can easily lengthen the pendants.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

While doing the job myself wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done, I do like the results :)

The four cabinets came down with a minimum of problems, except the third one, when I forgot to double-check that all the side screws were out before removing the top screws. That didn't work so well and that's when one of the glass pendant shades shattered. Other than that, though, it all went pretty smoothly.

After taking them down from the kitchen, I carried them downstairs and installed them in the laundry room for some much needed organization and storage.

Now that the cupboard is down the mismatched lights are much more obvious. I wasn't sure how to make it all look good, but after looking around a bit online, I think I found the best solution. We'll put can lights in the kitchen itself, lengthen the pendant lights, and change out the hanging light above the table. That light needs some more thought though- it's centered in the middle of the room, but since the walkway from the side door runs through the room the table is not in the center of the room. We'll probably hang a hook above the table and hang the light from that, if we keep a hanging light- haven't decided on that one yet.

There's lots more we want to do in the kitchen, but we've made a good start. I love how much more open it feels, and it's hilarious watching Mr M duck to avoid the cabinets that aren't there anymore :)

Dungeon to Laundry room

Here's our dungeon of a laundry/furnace room. The picture doesn't accurately show how dark this room really is. It's hard to take a decent picture of a dungeon.

Gotta love the gray cinderblock. So blah!

The previous owners had finished the basement shortly before they put the house on the market, and they left behind some 5 gallon buckets of leftover paint when they moved out. Since they chose blah builder's beige (which I detest), I didn't see us using it, but I hate to be wasteful. Then I realized I could use some of it to paint the cinderblocks- even blah builder's beige is better than blah gray cinderblock.

So much better! Though the painted cinderblock now reminds me of my college apartments.

Once I got started, I couldn't stop. I cleared out the boxes, hung drop cloths on the exposed stud walls and around the heater, hung the cupboards I took down from the kitchen (more on that later), and laid down some cheap carpet.

The carpet is just a bit wider than the central walk space, with the edges tucked under the appliances and around the heater. I got the cheap carpet because I dislike the bare concrete floor (I hate dropping clean laundry on the concrete floor) and if we ever have water problems (none yet, and we had some torrential rains last spring), it'll be inexpensive to replace. In the meantime, it looks so much more... finished. Less dungeon-like.

The predominant color in the laundry room is now beige, but given how busy (i.e. crowded) the room is, I'm not sure if I'll add color or not. My OCD appreciates not looking at exposed studs and wires and pipes, and everything is organized so much better.

Built in shelves

Saturday I finally installed some shelves in the odd little spaces at the foot of the basement stairs.

Once again I forgot to get some good before pics, so here's a couple from when we looked at the house before we bought it. This one is looking down the stairs. You can see the odd little wall jutting out on the right side.

This is looking down the hallway in the basement. The odd little wall in the pic above is now on the left side.

I took this one after I started. We've had a cabinet, boxes, bins, etc stacked in this space. It's too small for anything too big, but I hate leaving the space empty- it seems so wasteful.

The process was pretty simple. I used 1" x 10" boards because that's what fit in the space. I attached metal shelf strips (not sure what those are actually called) to each upright board. I left the baseboards attached to the walls, so I put a couple spacers between the wall and the boards so everything would be straight and even. I anchored the boards to the walls in a couple places and the shelves are a tight enough fit that the whole she-bang isn't moving anytime soon.

Insert a couple shelf clips, cut a board to size, and one shelf is finished.

The space on the left is roughly twice as wide as the space on the right, so I ended up with three separate shelving units. The one on the right has bins full of fabric and the two on the left have school and art supplies for LMS, as well as a couple toys that don't fit anywhere else. This pic is taken from the basement rec room, looking toward the shelves.

This pic is taken from the laundry room, looking past the shelves.

The shelves on the right go all the way to the ceiling- the open space will soon be filled :)

The shelves on the left go up as far as the ductwork, but there's still space on the right half for more baskets or bins if I need it. The two uprights in the middle are screwed together for added stability. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to paint the shelves or add trim to the uprights. I have a lot of other projects to work on, so I've got time to think about it.

I need to reorganize what's in the baskets and bins still, but it's already soooo much more organized. I didn't get a picture of them, but the clear bins and blue baskets have been all stacked up, migrating around the basement as we try to get everything situated. Now that I can actually see my fabric I can make some progress on some of my sewing projects. And I can sort through it all and make room for cuter fabric :) Some of my fabric is decidely un-cute.