New and Improved…
When you live in a house for some time, you start to notice things that need fixing. With this particular house, there are so many things that still need work that it can be overwhelming to know how to spend the limited resources.
For my birthday this year, instead of getting something for myself or going somewhere relaxing, I decided I wanted to invest in at least one of the unfinished projects. Jeff and I discussed a budget of around $500 and we listed projects that fit in that range of expense.
We entertain regularly, and up to this point, we have had to store all of the beverages in the basement fridge and bring them upstairs to place in ice buckets during events. This was a hassle as all of that soda and tea had to be hauled to the basement to chill and then hauled back up for our various functions.
My choice was to replace a cabinet in the coffee bar area with a beverage fridge. Since this was a gift to me, I asked Jeff to source the fridge, order it, and arrange for our contractor, Richard, to install it.
Up to this point in all of our renovations, I have been the person to design, choose finishes, and source materials. I thought it would be an excellent exercise for Jeff to see how time consuming and difficult that can be.
This involved Jeff measuring the area, discussing with me the type of fridge aesthetic I wanted (handle style, color, etc.), and ordering the fridge. He also helped choose which cabinet to remove.
Once the fridge arrived, Richard was scheduled, and they set to work. I stayed completely out of the way, except for a few photos of the progress. They were humming along nicely until tragedy struck. The new fridge didn’t quite fit in the space. They faffed about for awhile until Jeff found me and said in frustration, “the fridge doesn’t fit, I have to order a new one.”
I just smiled and said, “How about you switch the wine fridge that’s in the kitchen with the new fridge?”
I’d like to think I didn’t have a smug smile on my face when the wine fridge fit into the coffee bar space and the beverage fridge fit neatly into the vacated wine fridge space, but I am pretty sure I did. I KNOW I pointed out that all of this remodeling stuff I have been doing for 2 years hasn’t been so easy.
So, my gift was a new fridge AND a new appreciation for all of the work I’ve done over the last 2 years. Win-win!
Since we decided to maximize the space by using cans instead of bottles, I decided to design cups with a freehand drawing that I made of our house and our last name. I sent the drawing to our niece, Samantha, who has a business (H & H Designs) which designs T-shirts (among other things), and she converted it into a file that I could easily send to the cup company. We now have our own logoed cups that we keep stacked on the ice maker. How cool is that?!
A month or so after getting the new fridge, I decided I was tired of the white cabinet doors. The paint started to wear off of some of the doors, so I needed to paint a few of them anyway, so I chose to take the cabinet paint we had, and paint all of the doors and drawer fronts in the same color blue as the base.
Originally, I wanted to order new doors and drawer fronts, but that turned out to be too expensive for now, so I improvised and went with just the paint. Basically, I wanted the doors to be less noticeable since they are so outdated.
This little project was interesting because it was too hot this summer to paint in the garage, so we bought a tarp, and I painted them on the kitchen floor. To say I was sore after all of this is an understatement. Since I am still crippled up, I had to scoot and crawl around to each door and drawer and drag my paint with me. I must have looked completely ridiculous. Thankfully, there are no photos of that, since I am the one who takes most of the photos and Jeff was at work.
The cabinets look so much better. Jeff even got into the spirit of renewal and redesigned the trash cabinet. It is much more user-friendly now. It will need some tweaks in the future but for now, it works just fine.
We like the new and improved kitchen. It’s visitor friendly and easier to maintain, just what a renovation should be….
