Saturday, March 22, 2014

Kitchen Progress: Drawers

I woke up this morning dreaming in Spanish.

I don't speak Spanish.  Or, at least, I didn't think I did.  But now, I'm not so sure.

Unpacking boxes is lot easier when you have a place to put things (duh).  So this week was all about getting the drawers finished and reinstalled in my kitchen.  I did some light sanding, and added a coat of primer and a few coats of Behr's Alkyd Semi-Gloss Enamel in "Espresso Bean," (which took about 12 episodes of Law & Order: SVU and several days of drying time in between).

Cabinets before we bought the house.

Once the paint was no longer tacky, I lined the drawers with some adorable contact paper I found at Target, and installed the new, brushed nickle cup pulls I bought from Home Depot.  Oddly enough, the holes in one of the drawers were too close together by just a couple millimeters, and no matter what I did, I couldn't get the handle screwed on.

I haven't the foggiest clue how the previous owner installed the old handles.  Some kind of black magic, I'm sure.

So, I had to bust out the drill and shave off just a little at a time to widen the holes enough (without going overboard and making them too wide and loose).  In the process, I split some of the wood on the inside and broke the only drill bit we had to our name.

Oops.

Luckily, Home Depot sells a small set of probably-crappy-but-functional bits for only a few dollars.  Which was a relief, because drill bits are apparently an investment.  Most of the other sets I saw were $25-50 bucks.  Talk about sticker shock!  I guess that shows what I know.

Now we're talking.

A little touch-up paint over the splintered area inside the drawer (shh!  No one has to know!) fixed that problem well enough, and now I have literally more drawer space than I know what to do with.  Granted, there are still about 476 boxes left to unpack, so I'm sure I'll find something to fill them.  Probably things like my little 2-cup food processor would fit nicely in one of the deeper drawers.  (How I ever functioned in that little apartment kitchen, I'll never know!)

Contact paper is the wrapping paper of the kitchen.


Next step: putting the doors on the cabinets.  Mostly because I don't think anyone needs to see under my sink every time they walk into my kitchen, but also because I recently discovered that one of my cats has taken a liking to sleeping in my pots and pans.

Don't even try to play innocent...
Yeah, that's gotta stop.

Toodles!

4 comments:

  1. You are hilarious.

    You had me at the first line. :)

    happy day to you.
    karianne

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for coming by Karianne! So happy we can be so mutually amusing. That is, after all, the foundation of any good friendship. =)

      I look forward to your next post!

      Lauren

      Delete
  2. Love the handles and lining!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Leslie, and thanks for stopping by! The cup pulls are from Home Depot (www.homedepot.com/p/Liberty-Hardware-Brushed-Satin-Nickel-2-1-2-or-3-in-Cabinet-Hardware-Dual-Mount-Cup-Pull-PN1053H-BSN-C/204151714), and the contact paper is from Target (http://www.target.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/p/contact-blue-shelf-liner/-/A-14758421 and http://www.target.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/p/contact-white-shelf-liner/-/A-14758422), in case you wanted to know. Good luck with all your kitchen projects!

      Delete