Nesting on Cabinets :)
With the birth of my wonderful new nephew, Ellis, and the amount of time I've been able to spend with him and my older wonderful nephew, Franklin, the nesting-baby-bug has hit me like CRAZY. If I were more immature, I'd try to have a baby as soon as possible....like in 9 months. BUT ALAS, don't get excited because THAT is not happening right now for MANY reasons. HOWEVER, not having babies not DOES NOT MEAN that I can't indulge my creative nesting bug with some crafts :) (and by taking care of my sister's kids for her on every day off I get this month!!)
A few days before I left for Georgia last week, Jesse and I noticed we had new neighbors moving in next door to us. As they were moving into their apartment, they decided to leave at least 50% of their belongings in the trash pile on the sidewalk in front of our house. Most of it was junky, I admit, but you know what they say: 'one man's trash is another man's treasure!'
I had been wanting a nice cubbord or cabinet for our kitchen, not a make-shift one cabinet that was really a bookshelf, for a while now. We didn't get one when we got married. We looked at a few last fall at Ikea, but everything I like is too expensive. And everything Jesse likes is, ummm, ugly. (Sorry babe). So we haven't gotten a cabinet yet....and it's stayed on the 'wish list' in Megin's mind (although I doubt it ever crosses Jesse's mind).
BUT, my new neighbors threw out an old, ratty cabinet. When Jesse saw it, he immediately asked me if I wanted it. My eyes lit up. HE REMEMBERED. I just KNEW I could do something with it too! It would take time, but I knew I could make something of it! How fun that would be!
Also, GFC recently decided to throw out the REALLY OLD (probably before Aunty Ruby's time), cabinet that USED to be on the wall but got moved to the floor when the 4th floor kitchen area was remodeled. The cabinet sat on the 4th floor for a while, being used for extra CC snacks, until Jesse bought new cabinets for CC snacks. Then it was finally moved downstairs and sat in the front hallway of church for a while until finally Jesse and Bobby took it out to be thrown away since no one wanted it. (This was in ... say.... November I guess??). But sure enough, right after they did that, I decided that I WANTED IT. I could do something with it, I thought, and make it useful. Plus, we really had nothing to put all our food in at that time. (This was BEFORE we found my neighbors cabinet). We were out of space, so all our food just sat on the floor in boxes, and my Southern-Georgia-Girl who likes things to look pretty REALLY couldn't handle that much longer. So the old church cabinet with dust and cobwebs was better than nothing. I would just clean it and use it....which is what I did.
So in our back room, off the of the kitchen, have sat two old cabinets for a while. We have utilized them somewhat, but I have wanted to 'restore' them somehow. And today, was....THE DAY. Sadly, I didn't get before pictures of the neighbor's old cabinet, but if you'd like, you can imagine a dilapidated thing with crayon drawings all over the front, a broken bottom piece of wood, and mismatched knobs. THAT is what I was working with. And then, most of my readers are from GFC and know what the old church cabinets looked like, but just in case you are not aware, I DID get pictures of them :)
So without further adieu...here is how a gal on a ministry-budget trying to save for kids and a house makes trash into cute (in my opinion) treasures.
1. Start off with old, dingy, cabinet from church. Clean it thoroughly.
2. Unscrew the paper towel holder from top. Say 'eww' a lot because of how corroded the screws are.
3. Clean thoroughly again :) (making more 'eww' noises whenever necessary)/
4. Buy a foam board for $5 at Michaels, and cut it to size to fit the indentation of the top of the cabinet.(Measure the cabinet first...duh).
5. Cover said styrofoam board with blue burlap (or whatever type of cloth/color of cloth you prefer) This burlap, I bought in bulk from amazon for $14 last fall and have utilized for it many random craft projects since then.
6. Paint the old white-stained color of the cabinet with fresh new color of your own choice. I love grey. (Remember my bridesmaids?) I chose grey :)
Another view of the semi-finished product...it was still drying.
Then, use left over foam board or card board from those science fair boards (I took apart the CC ministry fair board) -cover it with burlap- make pocket flaps (as seen in this post about Pinterest Adventures)- Use hot glue (or some other form of fastening) to fasten the board in place. And.....
WAH-LA! You are done! :)
(Side Note: I actually plan to put another one of these note-boards on the other cabinet door...but I ran out of board and Styrofoam and burlap. Another idea I had was to use cork-board on the other side though so that I can pin things instead of storing notes or whatever in the flaps...so I might make the other cabinet a cork-board)
Then it was time to rearrange the kitchen so that my handiwork could be displayed. I moved the cabinet from my neighbor's trash into the immediate kitchen area. It is serving as a cabinet for tubberware and the microwave. As you can see, I pained the front part yellow. It was white with red and blue crayon drawings. I also cleaned and shined all the wood. And then I pained the knobs grey. I was going to look for and purchase new matching knobs, but then I decided I kinda 'dug' the mismatched knobs and that they wouldn't look half bad if they were painted :). Yellow, blues, and greys are everywhere in our apartment, so it fits right in. It actually would have looked nice in the living area space, but we didn't really have room for it and NEEDED kitchen cabinet space :). I really wish I had gotten a 'before' picture of this one. I also decided to add note-boards and a cork-board on the inside of the cabinet doors for this one. They work well for storing things like utensils or wash clothes, recipes, or lids to cups and Tupperware. I'm really excited about getting more burlap and Styrofoam and mounting them inside the cabinet doors. That way you won't see them, but when you open the doors, you'll have all the Tupperware lids that don't fit well when you try to store the bowls, or all the lids to your coffee mugs, or extra serving utensils, etc. Soooo exciting!
And here is our back room. Now we have PLENTY of space for all our costco goodies and Jesse's 4857239572358 gigantic bottles of muscle milk, fish oil, special organic teas (green and white), hydrating chia seeds, and all that other 'really important' health stuff he buys to make sure he lives longer than me and my diet-coke-coffee-ridden-body ;).
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Another view of the new grey and blue cabinet :)
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So there ya' go! I hope you enjoyed this segment of 'Baking and Making.' When I finish adding the cork-boards and note-boards, I'll take more pictures.
HAPPY SATURDAY! AND HAVING BAKING AND MAKING FRIENDS!!!!
p.s. I already have in mind how I'm going to make my very own changing table someday when I finally give into the baby-bug. That will be one fun project! I'm excited for that one!
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