Construction and Destruction

Yesterday afternoon, Andrew and I did some prep work for today's projects. I started distroying our kitchen in preparation for staining all our cabinets. Earlier in the morning while Andrew was still at work, I had stained the wood we bought to make a shelf for the pantry nook. Andrew measured the space about 40 times, found the studs in the wall, and cut down the wood. Then we drove off to spend the evening with friends.

I jumped the gun when it came to staining the cabinets. I didn't clean the cabinets well enough, and I had globbed on the stain, so the two cabinets I did ended up as a globby mess. I was frustrated and angry, so it was good that we needed to stop the project for the afternoon. Since our friends live a little over an hour away, I had some time to look up properly staining cabinets. I learned that my technique left something to be desired.

On our way back home last night at a little after 9pm, we stopped at Menard's to get the supplies needed for the cabinets. We got a cleaner for fronts that would de-grease and prep the wood better, lint-free rags, more stain, and a satin poly.

When we woke up this morning, I insisted we knock out a project before hitting up the Farmer's Market for breakfast. So Andrew went to work on finishing up the shelf, while I cleaned the cabinets and took all the doors and drawers out of the kitchen.

Unfortunately, things weren't going well. Despite Andrew spending time finding the studs in the wall, the banding to support the shelf was not cooperating. He did measure perfectly, though, so once the screws finally decided to cooperate (almost 2 hrs later), the shelf went together pretty quickly.

While Andrew made a quick run to the Farmer's Market on his own, I filled in the shelf with my cookbooks.

All my cookbooks fit perfectly. I had to re-dedicate a few baskets. Since we've been married, we have thrown coupons, info that we don't want to lose, and letter stuff (stamps, greeting cards that we forgot to use, pens) in "the basket." Unfortunately, it was too tall to fit between the cabinet and the shelf. So the old basket is now holding cat toys, but I think the 3 new baskets will help our organization.

Here's another look of the finished pantry nook:

The white space seems to me to be begging for some art, but I think I'm going to live with it for a little bit before adding anything. We still have some art print postcards that we bought during last summer's trip to Europe, but something bigger might be warranted.

Andrew just came back with lunch, so our next step is to figure out how to proceed with this crazy kitchen plan.