On to the Kitchen!: Kitchen Cabinet Makeover

After several months of organizing and decluttering Cindy and Greg's house, Cindy was ready to tackle the kitchen. For a family of five, the kitchen is by far the most active room of the house, where food, parties, birthdays and holidays commence. Each week, our goal has been to tackle a section of the kitchen, since it is pretty large with A LOT of cabinet space (Again, something that I sorely miss living in New York). So we began with this cabinet area below. Without a single purpose, this area of the kitchen was home to dog food, supplies, spices, pot and pans, old appliances, flower vases, you name it. But it had potential: cute open-face cabinets, above-cabinet storage space, counter space, and a wine rack below. 

 

The new purpose for these cabinets would be to house baking dishes, and decorative dishes. It would also house dog supplies on the bottom right, so that they would all be near each other. This is practical because these cabinets are further from the stove, so there was no need to store everyday things here except for dog food and supplies. A major change was coming up with a solution for doggie insulin shots. We later agreed to use an old coffee can so that it didn't look out of place on the counter top or even in the cabinet. Some other ideas we came up with are Clorox Wipes plastic containers and baby wipes boxes.

Most of the items stored in these cabinets were old, expired or multiples of things, so most of them were recycled or thrown out. There was significantly more space for dishes and decorative dishes! And we narrowed down the spices to about 10 bottles.

 

Once the open-faced cabinets were cleared out, this was all that was left! They are now used to store coffee mugs and decorative dishes. But the cabinets still looked unfinished. I suggested an idea that I saw on Pinterest that was reposted on BHG.com. Let the creative juices flow! These cabinets have radiator covers instead of glass! I thought it would match the eclectic, homey feel of the house and the kitchen. We went to Home Depot and picked out a sheet of this radiator cover along with a can of silver spray paint, wood glue and wire snips.

All we had to do was cut the sheet to fit each cabinet! It was actually pretty simple! Our next goal was the pantry! That'll be in another blog post this week. Over and out!

Tikki to Treasure: Mirror Makeover

Where did this come from? I'm not really sure.

*UPDATE* I know where it came from now, it's Melissa's.

I'm not really surprised though, since most of doo-dads and trinkets around our apartment have mystery origins, belonging to no one and having no home. And as a good hoarder, I save a place for them in my junk room and deep in my heart. I think the only reason we still have this mirror is because Melissa uses it to look at her mouth when she is making puppets. I also wish I had a picture to accompany this sentence. (She is a stop-motion animator) This mirror would be much much cooler if it were wood, or perhaps metal, but nope--it's plastic. And not the good kind of melamine, funky plastic but the "this would be a great Island Theme party goodie" kind of plastic. Let's represent this mirror with purpose!

So it is time. Time for this mirror to shine once more, away from Tikki Island, away from the junk room, and as a star component of the soon-to-be-posted hallway makeover. There is no excuse for fake plastic wood anymore, no gaudy gold paint. It's time for a *drum roll* MAKEOVERRR!

I wanted to paint this mirror a neutral color, so I went to the local hardware store, Saifee Hardware, down the street to buy some spray paint. When buying spray paint, be sure to get the right kind. Some spray paints are for plastics, others for metals, and so on. Spray paint also comes in flat, semi-gloss, and gloss. Since I'm not spray painting something large or super important, I got Krylon's "Khaki" in gloss. I thought about buying white or black, but I wanted something a little more like a beige-y color. Another tip for buying spray paint: be sure to bring your ID, as a lot of places card you to purchase spray paint and it is mostly locked behind bars. Luckily Saifee did not card me...I sort of think carding for spray paint is over the top. But enough politics.

Luckily this piece of crap disassembled. Ten points for Tikki mirror. Once I disassembled the mirror, I chose the parts that I wanted to spray paint. I set up a little spray painting station by the window, since there isn't much circulation in the main room and it's a really REALLY hot day in New York. I was a sweaty beast all day long.

Here is my pretty ghetto set up. I just used a large plastic bag and eventually placed this on the little emergency stairs patio thingy to spray paint. When spraying an object, read the direction on the back of the can. Don't spray too close or too far. If you spray too close to an object, you'll get gross drips and thick goopy paint smears. If you spray too far, the spray paint will just inhabit the air you breath, and you'll get loopy. Oh, and you won't get any paint on what you're actually spraying. So a good 8-10 inches away is perfect. Spray in short strands, not one continuous spray. This way you will get even coats and will even hit the crevices.

I let my mirror dry for about 45 minutes to an hour, which is probably not long enough but I'm really impatient. Once the spray paint dried, I added detailing with the dark grey paint from the bathroom. It made everything sort of pop. And here is the finished product!!

YAY. So it looks broken, but I assure you it is not. The mirror spins, so it's pushed a little forward.

So this mirror makeover cost only $5, a can of spray paint! And I can use the spray paint for other projects in the future. I didn't use the paint I have around the apartment because the results of spray painted items are much smoother unless you have a really steady hand. The next post will be the hallway makeover post, or a pre-makeover post. I will be looking for a storage ottoman, but it's secretly almost finished. The next attack will be where the red circle is, specifically the little nook to the left of the closet and also the closet.

Enjoy the weather guys, but not the allergies! AND don't be a stranger, leave me some comments. What do you want to know? Anything missing from my posts?