Kitchen Mini Re-Deux

When we searched for a house in 2012, we looked for something move-in-ready. Neither of us are very handy, and we honestly had zero time or money to make any necessary updates on a property. Luckily, we found our little flipped Cape Cod. The man who we purchased it from spent months replacing windows and siding, painting, and updating the kitchen and bathroom. There were still updates we wanted to make, but the neutral look of this house made it a great choice to move in quickly.

I’ll start today with the kitchen. I know most people look at my kitchen and think it looks great. I, on the other hand, don’t love it. I hate the oak cabinets, the tile countertop is a cleaning nightmare, and the colors in the flooring and walls are too ‘peachy’ for my taste. I’m an interior designer, what do you want? 🙂 At some point I want to gut it, but for now it is more than ok.

The main issue I had with this kitchen was storage space. In our last apartment we didn’t have a ton of cabinet space, but we did have an additional pantry and kitchen island that housed all of our food, cookbooks, baking supplies, re-useable grocery bags, and Murphy supplies. In this new house we had about the same amount of cabinet space, no pantry, and no room for a kitchen island. With the bottom of the windows falling so low, I couldn’t find a bigger storage piece, nor could I use our existing island because all options had too much height. So I had to get creative.

Luckily I got the food to fit in the cabinetry, but that still left everything else. I took the itty-bitty wall corner between the windows and made my own shelves. That’s right, this not-handy girl made shelves! Nothing fancy. Armed with the wall measurement, I went to Home Depot and found a good grade of wood (few knots, smooth surface) and had an employee cut the pieces to size for me. I sanded the wood, but chose not to paint or stain the shelves since their natural color coordinated with the kitchen. I then installed some simple black iron wall brackets (also from Home Depot) and secured the wood pieces to the brackets with screws. Boom, extra storage!

Cookbook storage was taken care of with the shelves. But everything else still needed a home. We had a butcher block cart that was not in use, so I positioned it under the shelves. I purchased some vinyl wicker baskets to hold Murphy’s stuff and baking goods that fit on its two shelves. On top I used another basket to hold our re-useable bags and left a space for paper bags (our city requires we use these for recycling paper). I don’t love having this stuff on top, but we access these items so much it just makes sense.

Besides storage, I was short on counter space. I found this sweet farm table at the Walworth County Antique Flea Market last September. Luckily, the off-white color blended right in with the kitchen and I didn’t have to do anything with it! So here is the finished corner with everything in it. Someday hopefully I have a full kitchen re-deux to post:)

-Amanda