Kitchen Projects-Part 1

So for awhile I've been trying to be patient and not do anything to my kitchen cabinets until we replace the countertops. We are planning to do that sometime this year. I wanted to wait until we had the new countertops installed before going ahead with painting my orangey-oakey-boringey-me-no-likey cabinets. That way, I would have the counters to match different paint colors chips to and select the right tone and shade of paint. This is important because I'm probably going to be brave and paint the upper cabinets and lower cabinets two different colors.

However, I was off work the other day and I just couldn't take it anymore. My plain, unadorned cabinets needed something, anything to spruce them up. So I made a trip to Home Depot and $50 later I came home with some oil-rubbed bronze knobs and pulls for my cabinets. (One good thing about having a small kitchen, buying knobs is cheap when you don't need very many.)

After a couple hours of drilling and going back to Home Depot for longer screws, here is a peek at my cabinets now. These knobs were cheapies at $1.50 each.

The pulls were a bit pricier at almost $4 each. Good thing I only have four drawers in my kitchen. Well, it's only a good thing because it saved me money in this instance.

Mr.Delightful Dwelling came home from work just as I was finishing up. There was wood dust everywhere because I had to drill all the holes for the hardware since our cabinets never had any. He asked "What in the world did you do to make such a mess?!" He was totally oblivious to the new cabinet knobs, he just noticed all the dust everywhere. Men. As long as he lets me do what I want to the kitchen, I can't complain too much when he doesn't notice what I've done.

I can't show off the whole kitchen just yet without revealing my next mini-makeover project. I have a new wide angle camera lens ordered and on its way. Then I can get some good shots of the whole room to share.

Mirror Makeover

Ok, first off I'm sorry that I disappeared for a gazillion years in blogging time. If you are reading this, thanks for not totally forgetting about me! I have so many projects to share and some major changes planned for the upcoming months.

Let's start out with a super easy makeover. I found this gold mirror at a thrift store. I love the scrollwork of the frame, but wasn't so thrilled with the gold color.

Enter spraypaint of course. I used a black metallic Rustoleum paint. I sprayed on a light coat so some of the gold pops through. The scrolled edges of the frame made it a pain to tape paper over the mirror. I managed to only get a bit of paint to seep through which I was able to scrape off using a fingernail. Here is how she looks with her new paint job.

I decided the perfect place for the mirror was by our front door. I'm keeping an eye out for a small console type table to put under the mirror. Or I could add a shelf instead. I have a big project planned for this wall though that will have to come first before I make a final decision. (Hint, think board-and-batten.)

Too Many Projects, So Little Time

I didn't mean to drop out of blogland for so long again. I've been so busy working frantically on several projects around the house. We are planning on hosting a BBQ on Saturday and with up to 20 people showing up at our house, I've been very motivated to wrap up all the little changes around the house I have been putting off. I have three big kitchen changes to reveal, my second laminate bookcase makeover to show off, and a few simple makeovers to share. I'll try not to leave you hanging too long!

I also recently purchased a used Canon DSLR camera so I will have much clearer and brighter photos to share. I'm amazed at how sharp my photos are compared to my point and shoot camera, especially indoors where the lighting is always an issue.

In the meantime, here are some photos to share that I have taken around the house with my new-to-me camera and 50 mm f1.8 lens (the nifty fifty lens, what a bargain!) I'm still learning all the tricks to getting great photos, but the learning process is so fun.

A Custom Plant Bench

I posted a few weeks ago about this custom shoe bench we built using Ana's plans from Knock Off Wood. Since it hasn't fallen apart yet, we trusted our carpentry skills enough to construct another bench.

So it was time for some more compressor power with my newest BFF, the wonderfuly delightful nail gun.

Within 20 minutes we were the proud new owners of this bench. You can see the plans for this bench on Knock Off Wood here. We did modify the plans slightly by not notching out the legs on the sides. We were feeling a bit lazy even though we have a jigsaw.

I gave it a couple coats of paint and primer (Behr Touch of Cream) and brought my new bench inside. It was just the right size to fit in our kitchen bay window. I needed something to put my ever growing plant collection on and this bench was the perfect construction project for the job.

Of course like any project, it's not perfect. It's so hard to find lumber at the big box store that is not warped or has tons of knots. We didn't nail one of the legs on very straight. The bench even wobbles back and forth if you try to sit on it. However, I still love that we built it ourselves and it works perfect as a place for my mini indoor garden.

Now if only this photo didn't remind me that I need to replace or repaint that vent cover. It really sticks out against the white!

Laminate Bookcase Makeover-Part 1

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in almost two weeks. I was fighting a terrible cold so blogging and home projects were just not happening for awhile. I am finally back in action with several finished projects to share.

The main project I have been working on is to update my craft room. I posted the crazy "before" photos showing the cluttered mess the room had become. After giving the room a coat of the same paint color as our hall bath (Behr Rain Washed), I turned my attention to conquering the clutter problem. One major problem I wanted to tackle was to create a prettier storage area using one of the existing laminate bookcases I had. The bookcase needed to hold a hodge podge of mismatched photo albums, magazines, and books. Somehow I needed to figure out a way to make everything look more coordinated. I saw this photo on the BHG site and knew right away it would serve as my inspiration.

Here's how my version turned out.

And a reminder on how the bookcase started out. You can see it on the very left of the photo below. It was a super cheap laminate bookcase in a pale oak color that we purchased five years ago. We also had a shorter version of the same bookcase shown in the right of the photo. Both of these bookcases have been completely transformed. I will show the breakdown on how I gave the tall bookcase a makeover in this post. I will have another post later to reveal what the smaller bookcase looks like.

When I did some research online to find out if paint would even stick to laminate, I came across a very helpful post on the subject on the blog Living with Lindsay. I mostly followed her instructions which really ended up being the same steps I used when I painted the bathroom vanity cabinets in both our hall bath and master bathroom. Sand, prime, paint, and be very careful not to scratch anything!

1. First step, sanding. I used our power sander to sand every surface except the inside backing which I planned on covering up. I used a fairly high grit sandpaper. You just want to lightly scratch the surface without going all the way through. You should see little white flecks of laminate coming off.

2. Trim it out. This step is optional, but gives the piece a more finished look. If you have a bookcase that is totally plain on the top like mine were, you can add some moulding to give it more substance. We used a miter saw and a strip of moulding to quickly add some trim pieces around the top edge. Of course I used my wonderful nail gun to secure the trim. Here's the bookcase all trimmed out and sanded down.

3. Prime time. I used Kilz water-based primer for the large bookcase and oil-based for the small bookcase. I prefer oil based because of the extra durability and stickiness, but I went ahead and used up the last of the water based primer that I already had left before purchasing another quart of oil based primer. I let the primer dry overnight before moving on to the painting step.

4. Time for paint. I used cream Behr laytex semi-gloss paint that I have used on several different projects. Both bookcases were given the same paint color.  I let both bookcases dry for five days before putting anything on top of them. This is very important. If  you don't let the paint totally dry and cure for several days, you could end up with things sticking to the paint or the paint chipping more easily.

5. Prettify the inside. Just like in my inspiration BHG photo, I wanted to add something to the inside back of each bookcase. I found a roll of wrapping paper on clearance at Target for $1.74. The colors just happened to be perfect for the room. You could also use wallpaper or even fabric.

I used the shelves from the bookcase as my guide for how wide to cut the paper. Both bookcases had adjustable height shelves.

Then I just used double stick tape to adhere the paper to the back of the bookcase. A craft knife came in handy to trim the paper tight to the edges of the sides, top, and bottom.

6. Use a curtain to hide clutter. I picked up a simple tension rod at Old Time Pottery for $1.99 to hold the curtain and fit between the bookcase sides. The blue and white fabric was a $4 purchase at Joanns Fabrics. Since I don't sew, I used some iron on tape to hem each side and the bottom. Now I can hide the mismatched books and albums behind lovely and inexpensive fabric.

7. Add accessories, then step back and enjoy your bookcase's new look! I shopped the house for decorative touches to fill the top two shelves and also picked up a few more items while out shopping. The mason jars I found at a thrift store for $1. The silver globe on top if from Home Goods. The white bird and topiary are from Michael's. (Free for me with a giftcard!)  The sleeping white ceramic cat was a Dollar Tree find. Inexpensive storage boxes from IKEA help corrall my endless supply of magazines and some general crafting goodies.

I am very happy with how my bookcase turned out. It makes me smile. =) I did scratch the paint in a few places while putting the shelves back in. Otherwise the paint seems to be sticking well to the laminate.

I will be back to post later on how the smaller bookcase is looking these days. It has been moved to a different room.

My Craftroom-The Scary "Before" Photos

One major project I have been working on lately is to clean up this disaster of a room. The room currently serves as my scrapbook/craft/Bowflex/storage/catch all room. It's become such a catch all space that I can hardly walk in there and I certainly don't feel very inspired to do much crafting.

The two bookshelves and the closet are stuffed to the brim with games, scrapbooking supplies, knick knacks, memorabilia, and more.

About the only thing that is going to remain the same is the desk. I do love my desk. It was a $99 online find from Target several years ago. It even had free shipping. Pretty much everything else in this room will be moved around, painted over, and organized.

The room is currently halfway through its makeover. Stay tuned for a new paint color on the walls, a different furniture arrangement, and even a tutorial on making over those cheap, laminate bookcases. (Yes, they are paintable!)

Building a Shoe Storage Bench

Thanks to the amazing plans and tips from Ana on Knock-Off Wood, Mr. Delightful and I were able to complete our very first wood working project. We made good use of my new air powered nailer and a borrowed miter saw to quickly put this happy little bench together.

We used the Brady Entryway Open Bench Plans, although we modified them slightly. Instead of using MDF and making the bench 23-3/4" deep, we used 1x12s to create a narrower bench to fit in the tight space near the door between our garage and our house. The width and trim dimensions were the same as the original plans. It just happened to work out that the width of 30-1/2" was exactly the distance between the front edge of our cabinets and the edge of the trim around the pantry door. It was just meant to be. We did also slightly change the plans by adding the bottom piece of trim to the outside face instead of adding it underneath the bottom shelf.

Here's Mr. Delighful Dwelling helping to assemble the bench. With the nailer, miter saw, and Ana's super simple to follow plans, we were able to build this bench in no time.

I decided to use beadboard as the backing. However, since the bench is so deep and will have shoes stored in it, you can't reallly see the pattern of the beadboard.

After filling all the nail holes and sanding with my power sander, I added a coat of primer. I followed this up with a coat of Valspar semi-gloss paint in a cheerful sage green. I have no idea what the technical name of the color is, it was a custom mistint that I picked up at Lowe's for $2.50.  Overall, I think the project cost us somewhere in the $25 range. It's not perfect. The lumber is full of knots and not completely straight, but it fits perfectly in our little "mudroom nook." The shelves are just the right size for shoe storage.

Of course, no project is ever fully complete until it gets the official kitty seal of approval.

I had so much fun with this project that I had Mr.Delightful help me crank out another bench following a different set of Ana's wonderful plans. Stay tuned for the finished product.