Kitchen Pantry Update

When we gutted and remodeled the kitchen in the little farmhouse, the cabinet maker made me a "pantry" cabinet. It was a pantry cabinet in his mind, I guess. The blooming thing was as deep as the base cabinets so it was like putting things in a deep black hole.

We have already made one revision to the cabinet. We took the top shelf in the bottom part of the cabinet for a microwave spot and had the door shortened.

I had installed some wire roll-out baskets, but there was not a size close to the width of my cabinet so there was a lot of wasted space. They were just not was stable as I needed for my junk stuff.

There is a new The Container Store in Charlotte at SouthPark Mall. My daughter and I made the trip up there Monday and I found some great bamboo roll-out drawers there. I used the 17" size even though my cabinet opening was not as wide as called for in the installation instructions. I got two of them installed yesterday and am very happy with them.

I bought three but am undecided about putting the one on the bottom shelf. The only things on that shelf are my mixer, food processor  and the doggie treats.

The installation was fairly easy with the enclosed template. The Container Store assured me that they would accept a return even after I had installed the drawers if I was not happy with them. So far, I am very happy with them and I am sure my back will thank me.

Chalkboard paint project: Oatmeal Bar

We eat oatmeal often, year round. I fixed up a little "oatmeal bar" for the fixin's. I am in direct competition with McDonald's.

I painted a spot on the little Ikea jars with chalkboard paint and wrote the jar contents in white paint pen. These won't be used for anything else, so I decided not to use chalk. The wire basket is a drawer organizer from Target that the jars fit perfectly.

My recipe per serving:

½ cup of old fashioned oats
1 cup of water
Pinch of salt
Microware for 3 minutes. Use a large bowl as this tends to boil over.

Add to cooked oatmeal:
1 tbsp Brummel & Brown margarine
1 tsp brown sugar (I use ½ brown sugar and ½ Splenda®)
1 tbsp Craisins®
1 tbsp Golden Raisins

Sprinkle with cinnamon; add a few drops of maple flavoring.

This is so easy and much cheaper than the instant packets. Eat your heart out, McDonald's.

Completed some little nagging projects

I had a couple of little projects that I had been putting off for some time. Actually there were three. I glazed my cream end table, but the before and after photos did not look any different.

I wanted to do something to dress up my cabinets. I had some shelf brackets that I decided to paint white and add them to the cabinet. I used my trusty caulk gun with contractor's glue and now I have brackets under my cabinets. I have got to do something with those cords now.





Our sweet little Jack Russell chewed the corner of this table when she was a puppy. I finally got out the wood putty and glaze. Not the most perfect job, but better than when I started



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After Photos of the Kitchen

I drew up the plans for the kitchen. When I took the measurements, the room had been gutted down to studs. When everything was completed, I was 1/8" off on my drawings. I don't think anyone will notice.

I wanted the kitchen to be open and not to have a row of cabinets around the room. The cabinet maker came over and as we talked he drew the upper cabinet plans on the sheetrock. I am happy with his ideas and the fact that the cabinets have no back and you can see the beadboard behind them.


This is coffee pot that my Dad bought Mother when they married in 1941. It had a top section at one time, but it is long gone.

This is the first place I go in the mornings.

This wonderful little sliding shelf is one of those "as seen on TV" items. I love that it gets the top-fill coffee pot from under the counter to fill it.

I just found this piece with Kokopelli this week. I love it because it matches the wall color so well. The yellow cup is one that a friend brought me from a trip to San Francisco. I think I have decided on using that as the accent color for some kitchen linens. The shelf is one I ordered from Pottery Barn eons ago.

One of my favorite things in the kitchen is this Ikea shelf over the window that doubles as a pot rack. I put it up while Rusty was at work and he did not even notice it when he came home. How can you miss pots and pans in your face??? The three tier hanging baskets are from Sur la Table. The one on the left has my Mother's old kitchen towels in the top basket and my much loved microfiber towels in the bottom. The top basket in the one on the right has some wonderful soft towels I found at Williams-Sonoma. They are like old diapers when they have been washed. The other two baskets are for potatoes and onions.

We had the cabinet on the left modified to have a place for the microwave oven.

Evolution of the Kitchen - The Before

I promised my friend, The Scribbler, that I would blog about my kitchen.

When we bought this old house from Rusty's aunt in 2004, it was a pretty mess. Imagine a rectangular shape with 2 dividing walls with doors in the middle. There was a small utility porch on one end and a room that was added onto the back with a small bathroom.

We had visions of doing very little work to make the house livable. Uh, no, didn't happen. We took it down to the studs so we could insulate the walls. The only insulation in the walls was the abandonded dirt dauber nests. We found one that looked like a dirt dauber apartment building; it was huge.

Renovations started in the fall of 2004. We had sold our big house in town and were living on the property in our 30' travel trailer. We lived there for 7 months and finally were able to move in May 2005.

This is the old kitchen looking out the front of the house.

Further down the cabinets was the lovely water heater:

And lastly, the vintage stove. Oddly enough, this stove looked new; it was really clean.

This is what we did to ourselves!!