My kitchen corner from hell

Well, Christmas is over and all surprises went off without a hitch.  Now I find myself in slow season for my business, and no homework to occupy me.  So I was back to working on the house again today.  The other day I cut a hole in a cabinet to give me better access and usable space.  Today I was finishing up the revamp of the corner of the kitchen.  The corners of kitchen are notorious for wasted space.  You either end up with a crappy lazy susan or a blind corner where appliances and other items go to hibernate and you forget they exist until it's time to move and you have to dig them out.  My kitchen had one of the worst corner designs I've seen.  I'm guessing that the original kitchen was designed with one of those counter-depth refrigerators.  This had since been replaced with a regular fridge, but the lower cabinet set too far back to be able to open the door to truly access the broken lazy susan that lay in there.  When the door was open you literally had 4 inches of width to get things in and out.  For the upper cabinets we had to standard 12-inch deep cabinets that met in the corner, creating a blind corner.  The problem with these is that the cabinet sitting over the fridge was too far back to access it without climbing on a chair and there was no space to store any of those big platters you bring out for entertaining. 

Okay, so my master plan was this.  I would pull out the old lower corner cabinets the one next to the fridge with one I built that was 28 inches deep instead of 24 - which brought it just shy of being flush with the frame of the fridge.  The huge cabinet in the corner was now a blind corner, but I have plans to install sliding shelves in there for better access.  Here is a picture of what I had to work with...

For the upper cabinets I wanted a cabinet above the fridge that extended further forward.  We were tossing things like bread and chips up there, so even if all I do is start storing those in the cabinet, it will at least clean up the space some.  The corner is a bit trickier.  I chose to keep it just as deep as the cabinet above the fridge which made for a massive cabinet.  But the cabinet that goes next to the opening in the wall needed to be a particular size so it would match a similar cabinet on the other side of the cutout.  This meant that I didn't end up with a rectangular corner cabinet, but instead there is a small lip that turns that 90-degree angle.  It looks a little odd right now, but I'm confident I can make it look useful.  So for the cabinets above the fridge and in the corner I had to build those from scratch.  Went to Home Depot, grabbed a 4x8' sheet of 3/4" hardwood plywood and had them cut it up a bit for me.  If you've never tried to maneuver one of these on your table saw, trust me it's not worth that hassle.  And I find myself flying solo right now while my husband is overseas, which would have made it near impossible for me to do it.  So had the plywood chopped up some, and then perfected the dimensions when I got it home.  Cut some grooves for the lower shelves.  The cabinet hangs on the wall to the left of the opening was taken off the wall, cut down to size with my circular saw and then nailed/screwed back together.  I highly recommend repurposing cabinets if at all possible.  Cuts down on the amount of waste and really no need to reinvent the wheel completely if you don't have to.

 

So what do I have now?  Yup, a big mess.  The cabinets are up, although as I type this I'm waiting for my drill's battery to recharge so I can put a final screw in one of them.  As I look at the pictures I'm tempted to add some sort of corkboard to the inside of one of the cabinets so I can get rid of the fridge clutter too.  Just need to finish them with trim, paint and doors.  And naturally now comes the fun part of trying to figure out which premade cabinet organizers will make the best use of this new space.  Suggestions if you were going to do this in your kitchen?  Protect your countertops if you're taking down upper cabinets.  I don't have a countertop right now, so that wasn't a problem for me.  Ask for some help.  I'm super stubborn, so when it came to putting that corner cabinet up I was sweating and panting.  Those are hard enough to put in with one person holding it and the other screwing it in, so I'm not sure how I managed to do both those jobs.  But really glad it's done.  Finally, it's not going to look like perfection until the trim is on, so don't be too hard on yourself if it doesn't look exactly as you envision it when it first goes up.

 

And now, I have a massive pile of sawdust to clean up.  Very glad to have the grunt work done on this job so now I can work on the finishing touches because that's when you really get to see your vision taking shape.    



Home improvement has..

...overtaken my life.  Not because it has to, but because I just love it.  Has it been a while since I blogged?  Yup.  Do I have a good excuse?  I guess not, I mean really how long does it take to write down my thoughts??  I suppose the real reason for my leave of absence was lack of anything of substance to say, plus constant other demands for my time. 

So I was thinking, today, as I cut a big hole in the side of a kitchen cabinet that perhaps I should write about what I've been doing to the house we bought in February because it consumes a lot of my time, and maybe there are others out there who want to change things in their own home but just don't know how to approach it.  So my plan is this:  I will start by writing some about my current projects, and then I may jump around and talk about some of my previous projects.  I get a lot of my nerve, regarding construction, from my Dad who involved us in building from an early age.  I'm trying to follow in his footsteps by letting my boys help whenever I can think of something that needs to be nailed or screwed together.  I must say he had the patience of a Saint, me not so much.

My current project is the kitchen.  We went to the local big box home improvement store and had some plans put together for a Kraftmaid kitchen cabinet set.  Naturally I wanted all the bells and whistles that Kraftmaid offered with a special appliance lift cabinet for my mixer, pull out pantry cabinets, etc.  We only managed to put together some base cabinets but had gotten up to an almost $7000 price tag.  Trying to afford that was insanity.  In the interest of being thrifty I decided I would attempt to repurpose some existing cabinets, build a few new ones when necessary, and order new cabinet doors and drawer fronts to update the space.  The nice part about doing the kitchen this way is that I can work at my own pace and tackle one cabinet at a time.  I unscrew a cabinet from the wall and floor, chop it the way I need it, move it into a new place.  Screw it into place, fill the nails holes, sand it and paint it.

Today's project was to chop a hole in the side our sink base cabinet.  Most sink base cabinets are rectangular.  Our's, however, appeared to be a built to line up well with our island shape.  Great for look, extremely poor for function as we now had this triangular area of open cabinet space that was unusable.  For this project, I just needed my tape measure, a pencil, a level, a circular saw, a jig saw and a sander.  I suppose you could do it without the circular saw, but it does make it easier to make a straight/square cut as compared to the jig saw where the blade is a little flexible/bendy which can give a wiggly cut.  I measured the sink base cabinet face frame to see how far from the top and bottom to make the horizontal cuts as well as the verticle cuts, and drew lines for these using the level.  Zip zip with the circular saw to cut most of the lines except for the corners, and then used the jig saw finish the cuts in the corners.  Sanded it until smooth, and voila. 

Does it look pretty?  Nope.  I mean the cut is nice and straight, but I now get to clean up a lot of sawdust, you have a nice view of my trashbags under the sink, and the boys now have yet another cabinet missing a door that they think is a play area.  But we're headed in the right direction.  Next up for this puppy?  I'm going to order a hinge.  I prefer the Blum 1 1/2" overlay hinges (full overlay) - which I've found online (couldn't find them at the hardware store or big box home improvement store) at www.barkerdoor.com.  I like these because when installed, the cabinet door will cover the majority of the cabinet face frame.  I think this looks "high end".  Some people like to have smaller doors and more of the cabinet frame showing, so it's your preference, but I think that style looks kind of cheap.  So I'll order 2 hinges, and also the blum soft close attachments.  I installed some of those on another cabinet and it is impossible to slam that cabinet closed now which is great if you have energetic little people living with you.  Finally I will need to measure and order a door for this cabinet.  I found www.rawdoors.net has great pricing and the doors and drawer fronts are beautiful, heavy/sturdy, and they will drill for your hinges (bonus!!).  I could build the cabinet doors myself, but they would never be as nice as these, plus I did a cost estimate and it would be about the same for me to buy the supplies as it is to just order the door.  I'm estimating that the cabinet door will run about $70 with the shipping.  The hinges I can get a pair for $8 and a soft close attachment is $6 plus shipping.  All put together for less than $90 I have gained 2 extra square feet of cabinet space and a pile of sawdust to sweep up.  Perfect for storing things like our bag of dog food and all his accessories.  Or you could skip the cabinet door and put some shelves in there for your cookbooks. 

My Mount St. Helens of Laundry

Of all the menial tasks I complete on a routine basis, laundry has got to be my most dreaded one.  I still cannot figure out how a family of four, including two small boys (which wear small clothes) can generate such a big pile.  Even in the summer when we are all wearing shorts instead of bulky sweat pants, or running around naked (the boys, not me) it still seems to sneak up on me.  And suddenly I find myself with three hampers overflowing in addition to a load in the washer, one in the dryer and one clean batch chillin' in the basket.

So the other night I suddenly realized something, and now I find myself much more at peace with the laundry demon.  Laundry will never be done.  Ahhhhhhh.  I can finally relax a little.  Yes, that's right.  You can never be completely done with laundry unless everything has been washed & dried and you are walking around naked (thus not generating more laundry).  I don't know why this didn't occur to me before.  All this time laundry had been a huge frustration because no matter how hard I tried to "finish" it, there wasn't enough time in the day to get all the clothes washed and dried and put away, thus it was still there staring at me the next morning.  But now, since I have become aware that laundry is not a project I can ever finish, I'm no longer trying to do so.  I wash a few loads, fold them up and put them away and maybe a day or two later I do some more.  Everybody has clean clothes, and the hampers aren't puking dirty clothes because they've passed max capacity - because I'm just attacking it like the daily task of washing dishes.

Is this a pretty boring post?  Yup.  But I was so happy when I came to terms with this chore that I just had to share for all of you out there that are trying to possess a home without a single dirty sock in it...  It just won't happen unless you live in a nudist community.  And even if that were the case, you still might have a washcloth or shamwow to take care of from time to time.

Grinding My Teeth Off

Yes, it's been a while since I ventured onto Blogspot to write anything.  I think my mind has been in a bit of a fog.  Most of them time when I feel like writing about something, it's because it was on the top of my mind and I had a clear vision of what I wanted to say.  Not the case lately.

We have been struggling with the mind-numbing task of trying to purchase a home.  My husband's military orders changed, but allowed us to stay here for another three years (at least) so we decided to take the plunge again.  We found a house right around the corner.  And by right around the corner, I mean everytime we had a showing or inspection I've walked to it in about 3 minutes.  The house is in pretty rough shape.  The bones are good, but the inside is pretty nasty.  Grimey, nasty carpet.  Walls that have never known a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.  Laminate flooring which was horribly installed - and that's hard to do with a fool-proof product like this one.  A strange little room built in the garage, with a hole punched in one of the walls.  But surprisingly for a foreclosed home, the kitchen still has all the cabinets and appliances in place - although they are "vintage" (circa 1990) so will need to be pulled eventually.  The house is one story, with 3 bedrooms.  High ceilings in the living room, a big family room that is in the same open area as the kitchen.  A huge yard.  Big deck.  Gigantic garage with shelving built in - well, huge once we get that strange room out of there.

Needless to say, we are excited to get in there and start ripping the nastiness out and putting in the newness.  But here we sit.  I have spent the last month pulling paperwork on a daily basis for the mortgage company.  This process would be so easy if I wasn't going back to school, or trying to grow a business.  If only our bank statement was only one page long, and we only had to show a W2 for my husband... ah, how easy that would be.  But with our complicated finances come days of tedious tasks to prove that the deposit that entered our personal account, from the business account had come from a legitimate source.  And what was this deposit over here, and please write an explanation for your screw-up over here.  I seriously got to the point one day where I thought I was going to lose it.  It simply felt like they were just digging deeper and deeper just looking for that one solid document that indicated that we were huge losers.  :(  My husband wanted to walk away, watching what it was doing to me.  We aren't horrible people.  We owned a home before... in fact, we bought that home with the help of sub-prime lending, maintained the home and when it came time to sell, we were not foreclosed upon or involved in a short sale.  Shouldn't that speak volumes to this mortgage company?? 

We shall see.  Projected closing date for the house around the corner is next week.  Fingers crossed that I don't have to unearth more dusty documents before then.  Hoping everything goes smoothly, because anyone who knows me is aware that I have more than enough things to keep me busy aside from mortgage paperwork... and each one of them has been seriously neglected lately.

Snowboot Sock Magnet

We just got our first snow of the season!  Weather report is calling for a couple days of snow and the expectancy that it will stay is ZERO.  Temperatures here in Washington are just too warm to support snow on the ground.  It's so unfortunate because the boys finally want to play in the snow, whereas when we were in Maine the snow was just too high and they were too small.  I love days when it snows.  Even in Maine the temperature seemed to warm up when the snow was flying... well, warmed up to tolerable levels.  I actually really like to go out and shovel while the boys play.  Great to have a reason to get out and do some purposeful exercise and get some fresh air.

Took the boys to go sledding.  G still wants me to ride with him, which is fine by me.  P is more adventurous so I think he took about three times as many runs down the hill.  During one of my treks up the hill I began to wonder what it is about the mechanics of the snowboot that encourage sock removal.  Anyone who does not know what I'm referring to has clearly never experienced playing in the snow to the fullest.  It's when you've moved around enough in the snow and suddenly you start to feel your warm sock creeping off your foot.  As a kid I recall my mom wrapping my feet in sandwich baggies or bread bags.  This was to keep your feet drier since we would play in the snow for hours.  By the time we came in to warm up our sock was hanging on by a toe and our feet were slipping all around in those sweaty plastic bags.  For some reason I guess I thought the snowboot would have evolved since childhood.  Or maybe my socks would be tight enough to withstand the "foot stripping" appeal.  I was wrong.  The toe of my snowboot was like a sock magnet, tugging relentlessly at my wimpy socks.  Four trips up the hill and I could feel exposed heels.  Felt like I needed some sweet sock garters.  And on that note, I'm now going in search of a picture of a 1950's husband, home from work wearing the black sock garters and gigantic starched boxers...  wish me luck.  This could be a whole new market for the sock garter manufacturers. 

Homeownership here we come

...again!!  We submitted our offer, they countered, we countered, they countered again, we re-countered with our final offer, they countered again with another offer... and... we... accepted!  Are we nuts?  Maybe.  Are we excited?  Yes!  Was I about to pull my hair out, grind my teeth off, and puking in my mouth (just a little)??  YES!!  I thought I was going to go nuts if we didn't get some closure on the haggling soon.  So what was our next step?  Well, we want to get the house we are currently renting ready for pictures so our the family the owns it isn't left with an open home.  They've been very good to us and we want to be sure they are taken care of too.  That meant a quick run to the dump, or so we thought.

We have a king-size mattress that we have owned for 7 years.  My husband picked this treasure up off of Uncle Henry's.  For those who aren't from New England, and thus don't know about the wonders of Uncle Henry's, it's kind of like the original Craigslist, but in print form - and it's awesome for finding great deals on the most random things.  Anywhoo.  So my husband bought this thing and thought he got this great deal when he came home with a $300 brand new king-size mattress and box springs.  It has been a piece of crap since day one, but better than sleeping on the floor (maybe).  We should have known that it would be hard to get rid of since it was so hard on our bodies all these years.  So we strapped it to the top of the Trailblazer and headed towards the nearest dump.  Not the best planning on our part, since we had approximately 35 minutes to make it to the dump before closing, and the dump is a solid 20-25 minutes away.  So we headed out with the sun heading down below the horizon.  On went the headlights... or should I say headlight (singular).  We are waiting on a new part for our headlights, which means that they will randomly decide if they want to turn on without coaxing.  We began the drive, in mild wind which doesn't cooperate well with a mattress that is about 12 inches wider than our car.  So each time a little gust would catch the corner, the mattress would shift slightly.  My husband was holding onto it with his hand out his window, but kept complaining about how cold his hands were.  And we couldn't go any faster than 35 because we feared the mattress would not make it.  Mind you the speed limit between our house and the dump jumps up to about 55, so we kept having to pull over to let traffic go by us or to readjust the mattress.  At one point we pulled over to let cars go by, and the cop car on the other side of the road whipped around to pull up behind us.  "I pulled you over because you have a headlight out."  Really?  I'm pretty sure we were parked on the side of the road when you "pulled us over", but thanks for the news flash on the headlight.  Oh, and really appreciated being informed that I could be charged with a felony if the mattress fell off.  Ugh!  He let us continue on our way.  I stopped a bit later to readjust the mattress, and my husband decided to put his window up since he was freezing.  Only too bad the electrical Gods in our car decided that his window wasn't going to work at that moment.  We found the dump.  Pulled up 2 minutes after the gate closed.  Beyond frustrated.  If only that cop hadn't been there, we would have made it in time.  Instead we got to drive all the way home, still with the mattress, on all back roads.  Our headlight decided to go out, which left us driving home with the high-beams on.  And here we sit at home, exhausted and ready for bed at 8 p.m., with a mattress strapped to our car in the driveway.

So glad that the house deal haggling was finalized today, since everything else apparently wasn't going to go our way.  :)

Waiting

How can the thought of home ownership (again) have me ready to grind my teeth off?  We bit the bullet and submitted an offer for a foreclosure around the corner from where we are currently renting.  The house is total crap.  The bones seem good, and everything appears to work, but the previous owners just never cleaned or updated it.  It was built in 1991, so it's not terribly old, but you would think the carpets hadn't been cleaned since the 90's.  All the appliances are still in it, which is strange to see since foreclosed houses often have everything of value torn out prior to the bank taking the property back.  Yet things like the atheletic wallpaper border in one of the kids bedrooms was removed??  Strange.  Anywhoo.  So here we sit.  We made an offer, the bank countered our offer, and we countered their counter offer.  And that put us at the end of their business day.  I feel like I could puke I'm so nerved up.  I don't remember being this way the first time we bought a house, although maybe if I had been then we wouldn't have gotten into the mess which that house turned out to be.  And as I continue to ramble in an attempt to calm my stomach down... I'll stop.  Hopefully good news comes our way tomorrow.