Kitchen Cabinetry

This has been a project that has ended up taking longer than expected. But what else is new? I have a friend from work who is an engineer, and he and his engineering buddies were talking about how they seemed to always be multiplying things by pi (you know, π). Anyway, he found that it always takes him about 3 times as long to do a project as he originally thinks it will take him, which I totally relate to. He calls it the "Pi effect," a term which I will now be using. 

So we love our house, but we don't love a few things about it - hence the projects. One of those things is the golden oak color of the woodwork. And there is a lot of it in the kitchen. Now this post isn't about how we've painted or stained our cabinets (that's yet to come), but we felt we could do something else to help us like our kitchen a little better. Hardware!

We've always wanted soft close cabinets and drawers. They're just so cool. So after a lot of research, I bought some soft close attachments for the cabinet hinges. These were made specially to attach to the type of hinges we already had, so putting them on only took about 15 minutes. Yay!

This is the hardware attachment 

This is how they close now

Then came the part that took forever. Drawer slides. These can be expensive, so after an extensive search, I found them online for about $10 a set (normally around $20 for the 22-inch length we needed). When I got them, I realized I needed a bracket that fit on the back of the cabinet to which I could attach the slides. Ordered those for about $15 (for all of them). When they got here, we realized they were the wrong size and contacted the company. They were very helpful and said they would send the right ones.

 

These are the old slides

On the drawer 

After two weeks, I contacted them again and asked if the correct brackets had gotten shipped (they hadn't, and so they shipped them). So five weeks after originally ordering, I had everything I needed. I took that week to install them (it took me about 20-30 min per drawer to install), and then realized one of the slides was broken. Back online. At this point I'm sure the support person is sick of me. She sends me a new slide, and now I finally have them all done!

The installation process can take a while when you're retrofitting
older cabinets - especially when you're trying to make sure they stay level.

The brackets I needed to attach the slides to the back of the cabinets

Broken slide

The new slides catch really well, which can make it a little difficult to open the drawers - remember what I said about making it look nice? We had planned to add cabinet pulls, so after multiple trips to multiple hardware stores (my life lately) we bought some. Of course, when I go to install them, I drill some holes in a drawer and realize the provided screws are too short. Back to the store, then an hour and a half of installing pulls.

But now they're all done, and they look great!

The drawers (with pulls attached) closing very nicely

Kid Book Shelves

It's been a while since I finished and posted a project. It's not for lack of trying. I'm still waiting for some brackets so I can finish my current kitchen project, and have been trying to nail down what I need for some window treatments. But rest assured, those will be on their way (hopefully) soon.

This project was one that Kristen got from Pinterest. Kid book shelves! Now, as you can see, we have some book shelves already. The white one we picked up on the side of the road (marked "free") and the other one we bought for around $25. But if you know my wife, you know she loves books, and that certainly has been passed along to our kids. They have a ton of books, and they don't fit (well) into our current shelving situation.

The solution was to build some shelves into our kid area (which I realized I haven't blogged about yet - I need to get on that). What someone on the internet realized was that house gutters work perfectly for children's books. Earlier this week, we decided to give it a try.

We used one vinyl 10-foot gutter (purchased for $4 from Lowe's), and measured the area. We have a half wall that is six feet long, and our current book area is about three feet wide. I tried the six-foot shelf by itself at first, to see how we liked it.

We decided it worked, so today I went and got the second shelf, and cut it to match the first one. The four-foot pieces worked perfectly on our other wall (since we didn't need to cover the vent on the floor). Here's how it looks. What do you think?

Toy Room

Scarlett and Felicity have a TON of toys, and we try to keep them corralled as best as we can. We have a room in our house off our upstairs living room that is more like a big closet.

  

When we moved in it was just an empty room, so I decided to add shelves to help make it more useful. I added two shelves initially, and put up board games and some of the bigger toys up there.

First set of shelves

But Scarlett has a TON of princess dresses, and I thought it would be good to hang those up, to make room for other dress-up items in the dress-up box. I also thought that even with the initial shelves, there wasn't a lot of room to play. So...I added two more shelves along the long wall. We also got an extra stepping stool to make it a little easier for the girls to get stuff on and off the shelves. Here is the final product. This picture makes it seem a bit cluttered, but when toys get put away (on the rare occasion), there is lots of space for playing.

Panoramic Shot with all shelves

New Bed

Kristen and I have slept on a full size bed since we were first married, and it was about time for an upgrade. That's right, we moved up to a king. We found a metal frame and box springs gently used, and bought the mattress online from Tuft & Needle. We found our bedspread and pillows at Bed Bath & Beyond.

This project is similar to the workbench, in that the headboard is made entirely of inexpensive pine. I followed a pattern Kristen found a online, and it turned out pretty good. After I figured out how to use the jig, the most difficult part was probably sanding all the edges, but it worked out fine in the end. I probably didn't spend more than three-four hours cutting, drilling, screwing, and sanding, then two or three hours priming / painting.

Our new bedspread (pre-headboard)

Dry-fit

Sanded down and ready to paint

Close-up of the holes the jig made

Prime coat, ready to paint

Final product attached to the bed

Workbench - Revisited

I've always wanted a work bench, and I found some plans online for one. Made entirely out of 2x4's and one sheet of plywood - not bad, huh? If you're interested in the plans, you can find them here. 

The only regret I have making this is that I had not yet purchased my DeWalt drills yet. Those would have made everything go SO much faster / smoother. I also probably wouldn't have broken two drill bits.

Tabletop and bottom shelf, plus the rest of the cut pieces 

Frame assembled

Added the tabletop and bottom shelf plywood pieces

Took me an extra week before I got around to adding the top shelf

Since building the workbench, it's gotten a lot of love. I've also made a couple modifications. Take a look and let me know what you think.

I found some routers at a garage sale, and built a folding router table for one of them.
I have some legs that go underneath the table when it is pulled out.

I looked for a paper towel holder, but couldn't find one I liked for cheap,
so I made this one out of some scrap wood and a dowel I had lying around

Similar to the router above, I bought this bench grinder and needed a place to put it, so I attached this side table with hinges, with some legs for underneath it when in use. Also visible: my swiveling bench vise. Out of the way yet still accessible.

The Garage

When we moved in, the first problem we had to tackle was the garage. Apparently, the people who lived here before us smoked like chimneys...and they did it all in the garage. You can see by the photos how yellow the walls were from the smoke. We used some serious paint, called Killz. It's an oil-based primer made specifically to seal odors, stains, etc. like smoke and mildew. It worked great, but had some serious fumes (hence the masks).

Next order of business was organization. I installed shelves at the front of the garage for moving boxes right above where we keep our garbage cans (our HOA requires us to keep them in the garage). Kristen thinks I'm crazy for keeping those boxes, but moving boxes are expensive! I also added insulated panels to the garage door, to keep the temperature a little more moderate.

I also got some wire shelving units to store boxes along that wall, and hung up the bikes.

I also built a workbench (which will be the subject of another post), and bought a motorcycle dolly. I wanted to be able to fit both cars and the motorcycle in the garage - the dolly allows us to move the motorcycle around easily and fit it where there is room. We also got a laser parking guide that I installed on the ceiling.

There are still some things I want to do with the garage, but I like how it's turned out so far.

Here is a picture of the laser parking guide - it's plugged in near the garage door opener.

House Projects 2016

In August, we bought a house. It's not a brand new house, so of course there are things we want to change about it. We've done a lot so far, but still have a lot we want to do. So for the next year, I'm going to catalog the things that I've done to make our house into a home. Stay posted!