Kitchen Upgrades

It never takes me long to decide what to do to a space but it takes me forever to decide on little things like fabric, colors, patterns...so my projects take a lot longer than they should. There's a space in our kitchen that remained empty for most of the year, often collecting shoes, baby toys, more shoes, tools, did I mention shoes? I knew I had to make this entryway area sort of functional but it took a while to find furniture that would fit.

I don't have a really good before shot of this little area I'm talking about but just to remind you what this kitchen used to look like, here's a shot taken while standing in the space I just re-designed.

We of course painted, put in new floors and lighting.  Thanks to Pinterest, I found this great idea for making a cute white board that's not white. I had been writing the week's menu on a piece of paper but it often changes due to me forgetting to buy items or evening plans changing at the last minute so that piece of paper gets re-written almost once a week, which was getting old. Now I can just wipe it off and start again! It's just a picture frame with scrapbooking paper behind the glass.


While I was shopping for the supplies for that I found sheets of cork and made a cork board out of a larger picture frame. It's a perfect place for all the things that have been cluttering the refrigerator for too long.


I found a solution for the shoes problem with this bench and the part of me that's afraid of color officially died when I bought this rug.


This cabinet fits perfectly in this little space so I bought it even though I have no idea what we'll put in it. I'm sure it'll fill up quickly though I am aware everything in that bottom basket will be pulled out daily by Mr. Clark. I might just make it a toy basket.


So TA-DA! Here's my little kitchen corner, finally completed! It took us both about 2 days to get used to the idea that our shoes are all in one spot now, instead of in 4 or 5 places all over the house.

 
Another project I found on Pinterest is this awesome little jewelry holder. While I am not the biggest jewelery wearer now (Clark pulls on everything), I do have a good amount of stuff and until now, it's lived in heaps on my dresser. Using drawer handles, a 2x2 board and some fabric, I made this:




I've noticed the inverted cup drawer pulls don't work out that well because I don't want to dig through a bunch of tiny earrings in them. So I think I'll replace them with more knobs.  Also, I think the handles should have been more straight and even in thickness for them to be 100% perfect, but they work OK as is.


Lest you think Dave took it easy while I did all this, here is his latest project. He installed a gate opener on our cow gate (that's what I call it) which operates via garage door opener. It's really nice now but it'll be about a thousand times nicer in the dead of winter.



No, he didn't run electricity way the heck out there (it's over a tenth of a mile from the house). He installed 2 solar panels to power it. I know, I married a genius.


Lastly, good ol' Moose has been desperately trying to lose his extra 15 pounds and has succeeded in shedding 3. Here he is after a frisbee workout. (He's thinking "Just open the damn door so I can go get some water.")


and here's one more of moose just because he's so adorable.