Instant Kitchen Cabinet

This hutch has been lurking in the corner of the dining room because I don't have another place for it!

I want to put it in a bedroom as it doesn't match anything on the first floor but I won't have a bedroom spot for it for a while. Now it officially has to move somewhere as I am working on that corner of the room.

The bottom part I can probably safely store in the garage but the top part is a little more precarious. I did some measuring and discovered it fits my awkward kitchen corner perfectly.

This photo shows the awkwardness of the wall (pre-move-in shot)

The upstairs plumbing and the (currently unused) clothes chute (clothes drop right into the basement toilet) and upstairs plumbing are behind the angled wall.

Obviously it would look better level with the top of the windows but I fear the whole wall would come down if I tried to hang something substantial from it without prior research of what is behind that paneling. Also my grandma would haunt me for drilling holes into one (of many) of her precious hutches!

I do like I can see my stuff now in the kitchen and it's not squished in the corner of the dining room anymore. 

The Two Hour Project Which Almost Wasn't

Every home project takes longer than one thinks. This should be no surprise. But this project I had in mind had nothing, absolutely nothing which could backfire and take two weeks to finish. I was just going to paint.

This has been bothering me since we moved in. Someone painted the cupboards but apparently ran out of paint? They had about 4 brush strokes worth of off-white paint so that got in the mix as well. And then I took off the cover plates and what should I see staring back at me? 

Old Linoleum!? It's hard to see but it is that brown/green marbleized kind. My parents had  some in one of their bathrooms and on a laundry table and we assumed it was original to their 1918 house. The stuff may have been made for 40 years so who knows how old mine is. I took out a flashlight and I could see it all along the crack between the upper cupboard and diagonal trim. I JUST about ripped out that 70's diagonal wood but came to my senses and realized it was not a good idea because A. They nailed right through it when they attached the wood B. It might not go all the way to the counter so then what? and C. Despite how much it intrigues me, come on, it would totally clash with my classy orange and harvest gold décor.

It's all painted and all the same color so I am satisfied for now. The mystery of the Linoleum will still be there if I ever get up the nerve to redo the kitchen.

70's Drugs and Organization

this seemed to be the theme of my finds for the weekend. Not that I purchased/used actual drugs and it wasn't even until my family's comments I realized this theme.
First off, I have been casually looking for a "new" canister set. I've almost requested a Fiesta set several times ALMOST forgetting the #1 requirement on my mental list was lack of fragility (I would be eating unsweetened Rice Krispies out of fear of dropping the lid in my early morning stupor)  #2 on my list was it had to be bright and obnoxious (obviously) AND #3 it had to be cheap. Every time I tried to rationalize spending actual money on a canister set I went back to "meh, my current set works just fine"

This is my current set:

It is definitely vintage and looks fine from a distance. 

Close up, the pull tabs are rusty, loose and have scratched the lids plus the copper coloring on the lids is also fading away. I acquired this from my mom's leftover, unwanted auction stash just so my roommates and I had something for our college rental house. 

Introducing my new canisters!

The set is metal with sturdy plastic lids, it is very obnoxious and rang it at $3 so it fit all of my requirements.The bonus is it actually has orange in it so it works with my orange and yellow kitchen. My brother asked if I bought these to organize my drugs. Come on, mushrooms were a popular 70's theme and are not necessarily drug related...are they? I guess my knowledge on the beginnings of the 70's mushroom craze is limited.

Another funky 70's/early 80's find:

My mom: "Are those Poppies? Did you buy a Poppy clock to go with your canister set!?" Darn it! I liked the chunky brown case and the font on the numbers. My intention is to put a more mod and less country-esque scene inside.

No, a tornado did not hit the garage. This is the organization part of the weekend finds. I've been wanting to redo a vintage file cabinet and I finally found one of those (cheap, of course). We also found some good garage shelves and some small filing drawers which will also be fun to redo, once I can spray paint and work with chemicals again.

Finally, I wandered into the garage yesterday and spied this sitting on the floor:

My brother bought this Compact brand vacuum (for himself, drat) and was trying to hide it in the garage because he knew I would want it! The plastic/rubber on the attachments are made with glitter!

Glitter! Ah, unfortunately the camera doesn't quite catch the full beauty of them.I will definitely be trying to convince him I need this for my birthday or Christmas!

Coca-Cola Ice Box

My parents are still digging stuff of mine out of their house. My neighbors must think I'm crazy (rightly so) because a couple more boxes are brought every visit. This visit brought my 4-H project from 7th grade but first I will tell you about my icebox stoop.

This is where my house's first icebox sat. The kitchen is to the left and up a step and the side door (convenient for ice drop off) is to the right. 

 An overhead view. If you look in the middle and a few boards out from the wall, you can see the hole where the drain pipe was (still is in the basement) so the ice could drain away.

So what is one to do with this space? I was using it for recycling but I am lazy and never seem to motivate myself to drop off said recycling until it is an out of control pile. Not a big problem but this spot is easily viewed from the kitchen since the basement is always open for the cat. Tired of looking at a giant pile of plastic I decided since this spot originally housed an ice box, why not "reinstall" one? Of course I have one...who doesn't??

Back to my 7th grade 4-H project. This one, as many projects did, came from the back of my parent's garage and was purchased at an auction for $5. At that point in my life, while most of my friends were in want of the latest clothing and shoes, I really wanted (I guess I still do) a vintage Coke cooler/machine but had no way of affording one. So my answer to this "need" was to get out the spray paint and make a Coke logo stencil. The ice box was missing a leg and is made from a hodgepodge of cheapy wood so this was a definite improvement.It won a big ribbon and went to the state fair so I was happy.

The top props up and I can cram all of my Coke bears right inside.

  Plus I can store some of my misc. Coke things in the bottom.

Now I just need to do something about that stained up 90's wallpaper in the background, add a few more shelves and my basement stair landing will transform into the perfect Coca-Cola area.

Spontaneous Kitchen Knobs

Oops! I just realized I never posted this after writing it up nor did I post the week before project. So first, the other day I spontaneously decided I needed to change out the cabinet knobs in the kitchen since they are one by one falling off despite my careful gluing a year ago.I thought since I was someday going to rip out the circa 1970 homemade cabinets I could live with the knobs but I was wrong.

I do still like the little knobs as they all have a different design

They just were not suited for kitchen cabinets. I'll hoard them in the basement for perhaps another project someday.

The internet is fantastic as I can sit at home and decide what I want and who has it. I wanted something retro-ish and cheap.

I thought about going crazy colonial bicentennial 70's with some wrought iron handles like these:

But I would have had to add another hole and the drawers already have a hole in the center etc. so my 1/2 hour project would have turned into a 3 evening project. Wait, these are only .86? Maybe I should have gone 70's. I can also picture these on some 50's knotty pine.

I "upgraded" to a slightly more expensive knob. One I thought Mark might also approve of since he was at work and I wasn't able to consult him. Though I know I would get a shoulder shrug and a "whatever" along with his likely "as long as you don't ask my opinion or make me sit there while you decide."

They don't photograph well but below are the ones I chose.

 

 It is nice to have knobs on all of the cabinets once again and all for a little under $24! Now if only I could decide what/how to paint them.

One Thing a Day

I am pretty good at procrastinating. That is why I have not started freaking out about the fact Mark volunteered our house for Easter. I will start freaking out about this about 2 days in advance so I have set a goal to do one productive thing a day. Yesterday I worked on the box of garage sale stuff which has been sitting behind the couch, today I took a nap, looked at other people's renovation blogs then went to Culver's and had ice cream...darn it! OK, today was a fail.
The other day I did get my bicentennial themed trivets hung up so that was productive. I found them at a Goodwill in Denver last winter AND they were even the half price color sticker so they were $1 apiece! Score for me? Well, I like them anyways...

It will mainly be Mark's family so I have to be sure they know I am running with the crazy 70's theme of my kitchen. Everyone who knows me should also know my not-so-secret affection towards my harvest gold appliances.
Hey, I can't afford to change it and they work so why fight it?

Soda or Pop?

I am obviously hurting for wall decor (yeah right!) so Nicolette was kind enough to donate to my cause. I had to show her I combined her contributions with a few of my kitschy ad items and am already enjoying them on the wall.

 

The boring 70's diagonal paneled wall before.

And after! 

Now I seem to be thirsty for something sugary, caffeinated and carbonated every time I walk in the room. I wonder why? 

Dishwashing

I'm back and with a story and pictures of my newest possession. A shiny new dishwasher! But first lets take a moment to remember the old (very smelly) dishwasher.

Here it sits in all of its 1970's glory. 

It at one time had some fancy settings. Plate Warmer? Plus a closeup of the marble finished panel.

The shelves were adjustable with this "high tech" Dial A Level knob.

 

At one time dishwashers came with your choice of color panels. Unfortunately today's reasonably priced dishwashers come in stainless, white and black. I tried to change to the matching harvest gold when we first moved in but left the white when I saw the unfortunate condition of the panel.

Coppertone and a pale avocado green were the other choices.

Gross!

 

It's not as dirty as I thought it would be back here. Yes, similar to the bathroom, very little to no painting has been done behind the cupboards. 

I can see the sink was along the diagonal wall flanked by 2 skinny built in cupboards with shelves which would have fit nicely under the windows. The bright yellow was a pre-1970 remodel and I see apple green from before that. This means when/if I take the cupboards off the opposite wall I will probably find a stove outline and I already know the icebox was on the landing going down to the basement because the drain pipes for melted ice are still there. Enough with my random kitchen ramblings and onto the dishwasher. 

Lowe's told us they would deliver it between 8 and 12 on Saturday morning. Figuring they meant closer to noon and then into the afternoon I was preparing for a day of antsy waiting. Seven that morning my phone rings and Mark answers. I hear him saying "yes, we are. Ok, umm, yeah, Ok. We'll get up and get ready then." We were their first stop so by 7:30 am our old dishwasher was gone and our new one was sitting on the porch ready to be installed. My dad added needed shut off valves for the sink and dishwasher and I'm not sure what all as he was under the counter most of the day soldering and such. I think he replaced some of the pipes with copper? 

So we got the dishwasher in place Saturday night. Sunday we decided to test it out. I loaded it with dishes, pushed the buttons and it started to run. Yay! We went out to lunch and then my parents went back home (an hour and a half away). About an hour after they left we went to empty the dishwasher and noticed the glasses almost looked dirtier than when we put them in. It was then we noticed the undissolved dish soap packet sitting at the bottom. The dishwasher ran its cycle but no water was in it so now not only were the dishes still dirty but the food was baked on! Gross! Long story short we decided to see if the fancy flood control? hose my dad decided to install instead of just a normal hose was closed so we pulled it out, undid the hose and reset it. Crossing our fingers I started the dishwasher again to hear water splashing in. Whew! I was picturing having to call Lowe's again and I know whoever would show up for servicing it would not be there as promptly as the delivery guys. 

I was delighted to discover the front panel was metal and not plastic so I can use my kitschy clean/dirty magnets. (They left a rust mark on the old dishwasher so plastic is still behind them).The magnet is correct. The dishes are sparkling clean inside.

   

Circles and Squares

OK, no squares just circles and other odd angles. And by squares I mean square corners which one would expect to find in a cupboard but I guess my cupboards are just that special.

As you can see the cupboards are painted a glossy Harvest Gold. Not my colors, but also not disgusting cleanliness wise so I though I would scrub them down for the time being and they would be usable.

Wrong! They were completely covered with a sticky film from old shelf paper and on top of that another sticky mess from foamy shelf covers. No amount of Goo Gone was going to help us here. Not to mention missing paint, knots and nail holes.

The top shelf still had the original paper. Not bad, it matches the counters almost perfectly.

While trying to make my choice between the 4 papers Target had in stock I decided this would be adequate for my funky, retro kitchen. I do feel I have a natural talent for laying shelf paper so when I noticed the geometric pattern I thought nothing of it. Plus the other choices were vomit, diarrhea and clear? how does clear cover ugly boards!? Yes, I am aware there are thousands of patterns to choose from online but this isn't permanent (I hope) and it was at least $10 a roll cheaper.

I scrubbed and sanded and scrubbed some more trying to make the boards less bumpy from sticky deposits and knots. When I set out to measure I discovered each shelf was a little wider on the right than on the left and the back of the cupboard was always a little skinnier than the front. The shelves also are permanently glued and/or nailed in place so no removal for easy access. I fought with the paper, ruler and X-Acto knife for a while (i.e. all afternoon for 3 shelves) but I think it turned out decent.

The finished product. Fortunately I can only see the bottom shelf and the fronts of the others so those were all that really had to be aligned. Note my KitchenAid is dwarfed by these suckers - I need a chair to reach the second shelf and a ladder for anything beyond.

A side note: It's official! I do not have to share my washer and dryer with strangers (er, strange neighbors) anymore! I can do a load of laundry and not worry about someone throwing my undies all over the floor before they are done because they immediately need to wash something. I should add if I discover this has happened I can narrow it down to Mark or Frankie, maybe the dog.

Specially Requested Kitchen Photos

Not too much to report. Just doing some uninteresting scrubbing and freshening up so I can put stuff away without feeling too grossed out. Fortunately nothing is super disgusting but the house was vacant for quite a while so there is some dust, spiderwebs, left over pet fur etc. floating around.

I do have the specially requested photos of the kitchen to post. I admit it does need some rearranging and updating but it functions (for the most part) at the moment so it will be this way for a little while.

The sink is awkwardly placed on the edge. It will eventually be switched with the dishwasher? I haven't thought anything else out past that plan. The clothes chute and plumbing for upstairs are behind the angled wall so it will probably always be at an angle - though I think it can be pushed back a little. Shelves or a cupboard will also someday go on that wall.

The basement stairs are to the left of the fridge and the back of the coat closet is to the right. If we ever want a wider fridge I guess the coat closet will have to go!

Wall of cupboards with the dining room door to the right.

And to end the post on a cute note. Otters was over for a visit and his footsies got cold. He solved this solution and found a cushy spot right in front of the heat vent.