Thursday, August 30, 2018

kitchen updates!

I'm happy to say I now have a built-in dishwasher instead of our rolling portable!
Ol' porty did the job, but it was a pain wheeling it over to the sink, you had to be around when it was running because otherwise the water would keep dripping, and it was taking up a lot of floor space too.
Porty in action
Here's how our kitchen looked before the dishwasher install. And yes, it was a very hard decision to lose 3 drawers in a small, storage lacking kitchen!
Handyman Doug creating the space for the dishwasher
The new dishwasher! We had a narrow space so had to get an 18 inch wide dishwasher instead of the standard 24. This will mean it has to be ran more, but we figured it wouldn't be a huge deal. This specialty size was a little more expensive, but we had some Menards rebates back since we did that new deck this summer also. So that was nice.
The dishwasher in it's spot where it remained for several weeks until Doug actually had time to hook it up! We had an electrician out to get electric wired under there, and eventually Doug was able to route the plumbing and get it in there with minimal leaks :)
So of course that meant I had to find another storage solution.
Enter my CraigsList find china cabinet.
This baby is actually a metal cabinet, which could be a pro or con, I don't know. It has a wood grain and looks like wood, but is a little lighter and seems pretty durable.
Of course I couldn't keep that ugly brown. And in a move unlike white-furniture-loving-Anne, I went for a nice pop of color in an aqua.
Naive Anne threw 2 cans of spray paint into her cart thinking that ought to do it, but 7 more cans later I was finally done! Followed by 2 coats of polyurethane.
Sprayed the handles with oil-rubbed bronze
I don't think you can see it there, but I lined the cabinets with a patterned paper too. Then we secured it to the wall so it won't tip on August, and there's a hole in the back going to a thin USB charger thing to charge all our devices. It's working out pretty nicely.
Our final project has been building a kitchen helping tower so August can be at the counter while we make food.
We followed this tutorial, but added hinges so it could fold away for storage. I cut all the pieces and sanded them, and Doug helped assemble.
Stained and sealed
ready for a helper!
And nicely folds away for storage.
Little steps at a time to make our home more efficient for us :)

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