Archive for September 2011

so how did we end up with new cabinet doors and drawers? i'll start at the beginning:this is what our kitchen looked like when we moved in 3+ years ago.
lovely, right? mike and i spent a lot of time working on the kitchen in those first few months. we knew that someday we'd want to upgrade just about everything in the kitchen, but we also needed to get the kitchen to a point where it was usable for a few years. we removed the carpet, wallpaper, built-in table, and garbage compactor. we painted the cabinets and the walls. we updated the cabinet hardware and replaced the broken dishwasher. we put down a temporary wood floor. eventually it looked like this:


we were very careful with how we dealt with the floor around the cabinets (it's not actually stapled in some areas) knowing that we'd probably revise the layout with the new kitchen, and we'd need to patch the floor under the existing cabinets.

on sunday i asked him to go with me to costco to buy 5 emerald green arborvitae trees. and then help me plant them.

it's funny how your priorities change as a home owner. when we were looking at our house, one of the big things that we said we wanted to do right away was build a 6' tall wood fence. the house had a chain link fence but we wanted something nicer and something that made our backyard a little more private. then we moved in and started the renovation process. the privacy fence moved further and further down the priority list. and at some point over the last 3 years, it's actually been removed from the list.

on one side of the yard we do have various types of plants (weeds) growing along the fence. for the most part we just let the plants grow naturally and the fence is almost completely covered. on the other side, we have nothing. and that is the side of the yard where we need some type of screening. our neighbors have an above ground pool and several dogs that only live outside.

when we saw the arborvitae at costco a few weeks ago at a great price, we decided to plant a few. trees are a lot less expansive than a new fence.

after not having much to blog about for most of the summer, i'm back and have lots of things to post about! that's the good news.... the bad news is that blogger doesn't seem to be working with my new work computer. and honestly, i did most of my posting on my lunch hour. so now i need to blog at home. my evenings have been pretty fully lately, but i will try to get some updates in soon.

i went to ikea in ohio to look at kitchen cabinet options and get some ideas... and ended up leaving with all of my cabinet doors and drawer fronts.

why? how? what????

the door style that i was thinking of using from ikea was discontinued a few months ago. i assumed i'd use a different style, but after seeing all the doors in person i still liked the discontinued style the best for our house. coincidentally, the ohio store still had some sizes in stock... at 70% off. for the cost savings, i kind of felt like i needed to at least try to make it work even though we had not planned on starting the kitchen renovation just yet.

i only bought the door and drawer fronts, it will probably be several months before we drive up to chicago to buy the cabinet boxes and remaining pieces.

so here's a sneak peak of what i was working on while at ikea: