A doorway you can't use???

Things have been pretty crazy since B has been back in the country. I have had to be much more thrifty in my projects because our income has shrunk considerably(worth it to have him home). So the projects have slowed a bit but the ones we have done are amazing!

Lets start with the popcorn ceilings!!! Sooo ugly!!! But so nice now! We spent days(weeks) sanding and compounding and sanding and compounding and sanding and and and oh man it was a lot of work to smooth out the ceiling. Ill admit, though, it was only one part at a time with a day or two in between. Our living room had so much dust in it that I had to vacuum our couches, then run a swiffer over them, and THEN wipe them down with a wet cloth. We tried covering them but it didn't always work. Anyway, Id include pictures but its just a boring old ceiling and I'm sure you'll catch glimpses of it in the next projects picture bank.

Next we got rid of those awful looking doorways we had...
As you can see there are big modern walk through openings that we normally use. Next to them, however, are the remnants of old doorways. Real doorways... minus the doors. Who, might you ask, would modernize a house by making big grand openings next to old doorways and then neglect to close up those old openings? A crazy person, that's who! We have been wanting to fix this for every minute of every day of the three years we have owned this house. We finally got around to doing it! (So for three years we were the crazy people)
The two openings are referred to as the kitchen opening and the hallway opening. So we did the hallway opening first, and I would totally post an "after" picture but I didn't get one before we started in on retiling the hallway... Suuuuper messy!!

But anyway, we ended up working with an architecture to make sure our house was not going to fall down when we closed up the openings and made the hallway opening a little wider.

The pictures at the bottom are the "after" pictures for the kitchen opening and on the other side of that wall we put in that custom shelving unit instead of closing it completely!

The Kitchen Phase One

I have had so many different dreams of what to do with this kitchen. They, of course, started huge involving knocking out walls, adding a wrap around bar and pot lights. Things have taken a turn for the more simplistic approach. We have found that over-updating, compared to the rest of the neighborhood, can actually decrease the value of the house. So we are going to stick with things that are relatively cheap but make a huge difference.

Changing the kitchen is going to have to take place in Phases.

• Phase 1 is to be shortly described. 
• Phase 2 involves sanding and refinishing all the cabinets in a lighter color. 
• Phase 3 involves either buying or making a moveable kitchen butcher block island. 
• Phase 4 sees a gorgeous new counter top/back splash. 
• Phase 5 is ripping out our floors and having polished concrete.
• Final Phase is replacing all appliances with Stainless steel to appease B. 

These Phases are subject to change at my whimsical desire.

Explanation for Phase One:
I have always been irritated that most of the items stored in the lower cabinets become forgotten relics only to be discovered during moves. Why would I get something to use in my kitchen, only to have it lost and underused. I used to tell myself that if I ever tore out my cabinets, that I would replace them with drawers. One day, not too long ago, I decided It would be much easier/feasible if I just made drawers inside the cabinets I already have!

After carefully examining existing drawers, I figured it couldn't be that difficult. So it begins...

The inside minus one of the shelf pieces.

I had to slide it out.

Phase one is complete. The drawers are pretty much finished. I think I'm going to hold off on putting a second drawer in the pots and pans cabinet to see if I really need it.

 When I hammered the shelves out of place, I had to very carefully turn them and slide them out length-wise. I re-purposed this wood into many of the drawer bottoms.

Tools used to remove shelves

Handy Dandy

I employed my handy dandy drill for purposes of screwing and drilling. I always pre-drill holes slightly smaller than the screw to avoid splitting the wood. I usually choose semi soft wood to begin with to help with this problem as well. After measuring the openings, I was able to construct a basic box using wood and screws. I had to remember to account for the thickness of the drawer slides.

First one!!

Some of my drawers had to be slightly more shallow that others because of electrical conduits at the back of the cabinet space.

I took the faces off some of the cabinets, but others i have left in tact. I don't really have a rhyme or reason for doing this. Its just seemed to work out that way. I may, or may not, go back later and affix the cabinet faces to the drawers anyway.

I made my first Drawer for the purpose of cans and dry goods.

Wish my mixer was a Bosch

I think the hardest part was making sure the drawer slides were level and even with one another. Creating something for them to attach to was kind of irritating too... and not always pretty.

Drawers three and four were for baking items such as big bowls, my mixer, and the blender. I love my mixer, but I still wish it were a Bosch.

I'm sure you have noticed there are three strangely light upper drawers. They were my test subjects. I had no clue what the wood looked like under the stain. I am super excited that it is so neutral. If it had a red undertone, it would have been more difficult to color. I feel like I can do ANYTHING with this, though!!

The drawers to the left of the sink turned out by far the best! Super even and super smooth. I still need to get a small jar of tinted Spackle to hide the screws, but that's not high on my priority list.


Hope you loved my drawers as much as I do!!!

-S