The House Strikes Back

Our Homeownership Saga

Tag: organizing

Shelves for the Kitchen Cabinets…Finally

So, you may remember shortly after we got the house that I used some small tables from IKEA as make-shift shelves in my kitchen cabinets (read here Kitchen Modification). Well, I had finally grown tired of that solution. So, I made yet another trek to Home Depot to find some suitable shelves. It took me over an hour to find any laminated or finished boards that would fit the space. Even then, I would still need to do some cutting to get them to fit but, who doesn’t love some quality time with a circular saw. So after a few cuts I went from a mess to some decent looking cabinets. (more…)

More Stylish Clothing Storage

Note stack of plastic drawers on the left


New clothing storage

As you can see in the picture we had, next to our nice IKEA wardrobe, a large stack of plastic drawers. They had been hiding in a closet when we lived in the apartment. But now that they were out in the open we were constantly wincing when looking at them. It was not a good look and one of them was falling apart. So we began a search for a more pleasant looking replacement. We ended up getting a bookcase from IKEA (yes, IKEA….again) that was designed to have drawer like inserts that came in many styles and colors. It was a unique route to go with this but it fit the space perfectly. So we got 5 teal colored drawers that are covered in a suede like material. The bookcase is actually a much smaller version of the huge bookcase we added to the living room (seen here). All in all, I think we paid $85 for our new clothing organizer.

Sorry for the bad picture of the new clothing organizer. The Sun was not being helpful.

Kitchen Modification

Chaos of our kitchen cabinets

Our kitchen base cabinets did not have any shelves in them when we bought the place. Which is a bit puzzling and basically meant that we just piled stuff in there as best we could because there was no good way to organize it (see picture). I didn’t really feel like making custom shelves for them at this point in time so, we prowled IKEA for something that would work for now. I had basically come up dry but then while wandering through the warehouse area on the way out, I came across what they called a “night stand” on super clearance for about $3. It was a small glass topped table that would fit nicely in the cabinets. Not a perfect fix, but at $3 a piece I was willing to give it a go.

(more…)