Spice Up Your Life

No big leaps forward on the cupboard door sanding front; I had errands to run yesterday and didn't have time to sand a thing. But I did get started on some fall decorating, as evidenced by the state of my craft room right now:

Either that or we've been burglarized and the thieves were only looking for glitter and ribbon.

There is one kitchen project finished - it's a small change but it has had a big impact.

This tiny shelf above the stove is the spice rack we've been using for years. It was already installed when we moved in, and since we didn't have another spice rack we just kept using it. It was better than nothing, right?

As you can see, it only holds about 10-12 bottles. So we would keep our most-used spices there and everything else was shoved into the pantry. It was kind of gross though because the bottles would get covered in cooking grease and have to be wiped off all the time.

But the spice you want is never the spice that's handy (I think that's a famous saying, isn't it?), so I decided to do a little rearranging. We have a drawer right beside the stove that is just a catch-all for things we don't know what else to do with. A junk drawer I guess you'd say.

It wasn't really junky though, it just had takeout menus, matches, candles, a measuring tape. Oh and a turkey baster - because you never know when I'm going to get the crazy urge to roast a turkey. For the record, that'd be never.

I moved the menus to the front hall drawer, threw out some of the stuff we never use (bye bye baster) and relocated everything else - to a rarely used shelf up above. It seems we have more storage space than we thought.

With an entire empty drawer available I started moving the spices over. Everything we use fits in perfectly, with the larger refill bottles staying in the pantry. It all looks so tidy, and it's nice having all of my spices right there beside the stove, where I actually use them.

You might wonder why I didn't alphabetize the jars - I did at first, but I didn't like how they looked so I changed everything back. Instead, the spices I use most often are closer to the front.

Wow, I didn't realize we had so much garlic. Just call me Buffy.

Kitchen Renovation - Days 1 & 2

Well, I guess I should've actually started with Day Zero.  

This was our kitchen before:

Nothing terrible, but nothing to write home about either. It didn't take long to get sick of the green, yellow, & orange. Fast forward 3 years, to January, when we painted the whole main floor. (I hated it but lived with it for 3 long years.)

Here we have the during photo:

Love the wall colour, hate that the cupboards (and the backsplash) don't match now.

Sunday afternoon I had Tom take down all of the upper cupboard doors. We practiced our counting in Spanish as we numbered them. Is it sad that we had to Google what comes after "ocho"? Gotta start hanging out with our Spanish neighbour more often.

Here's an awesome keepin'-it-real shot of the cupboards with no doors. I guess I can take this opportunity to straighten up and purge, right?

Apparently I have a dedicated vase and champagne glass cupboard. Who knew? 

I bet that door hasn't been opened in months.

I was also able to get rid of the cow hook that's been hanging above the stove since we moved in. Goodbye Missus Cow - I'm sorry, but I'm not going to miss you.

The plan is to sand the green stain off all of the cupboards and drawers - upper and lower plus the pantry - and then re-stain them a dark brown. I did take some time viewing the "painting with gel stain" craze that is so popular right now, but I think that's just too dark for me. I want more of the wood grain to show through. Not to mention, I think that only works when you're starting with a honey oak colour.

Here is my test strip. The divided areas from left to right show TSP, hand sanding with a sponge sanding block, then power sanding + stain. The lighter brown area is my experiment with steel wool and apple cider vinegar. It was in the running, but I couldn't get a consistent colour so I didn't want to chance it. The final area is just the board sanded bare.

I'm pretty happy with the colour it's going to be. I'm going to go with my fave stain - Rustoleum's Jacobean.

You can see that the cupboards needed work regardless. They've been there for 13 years and the stain just wasn't holding up. We're also going to replace the knobs with handles.

So it's off to the garage to sand. I sacrificed a week of my vacation time to do this. But I'm not complaining - this is much better than getting up at 6am and commuting an hour each way. Plus I get to spend the day in my jammies.

Day One was all about the power sanding. I managed to get about 6 doors done. I started with the smallest doors so that I felt like I'd accomplished more. Don't take this little victory away from me.

Today was back to sanding again. I stopped power sanding at one point to hand sand the routered edges, just to see how long it would take. It turns out it takes about 45-60 minutes. I can't wait to do that 25 more times.

Day three is going to be more of the same I fear. I've started to think I need to upgrade to an orbital sander. My little Black & Decker 1/4 sheet sander, as much as I love him, just isn't keeping up. 

Speaking of Black & Decker, have you seen this guy?

Black & Decker

It's the new 4 volt Gyro Screwdriver. I am so in love. It just went on the market yesterday, but it's been on my wish list for weeks. Anyone bought one yet?

4 Things I Learned Yesterday....

1. When you sand green stain off of wood, 

the sawdust that sticks to your nose hairs will also be green.

2. No matter how well you put a paint can lid back on,

 if the can falls from a 2 foot height onto tile, the lid WILL come off.

3. Steel wool ROCKS at getting white paint out of grey-brown tile grout. 

4. I am allergic to steel wool.