Drawer storage

One thing I chose to do when we decided on our cabinets was to get a lot of drawers in the base cabinets. I have not regretted that for a minute-I love the drawers. At first I was going to go with a 60/40 drawer/door ratio (not counting the uppers) but after doing some reading decided to just go for it. We did end up with two door cabinets-the one under the sink and the one that was originally going to be under our cooktop. We changed our plans for the cooktop but since I installed a pull out trash bin in that cabinet, I was still happy with it being a door cabinet. I can keep my empty grocery bags on the other side. Plus there are a couple of shallow door cabinets at the ends of the island. But for  now I'm just sharing how my drawers are situated.

These are where my pots and pans are stored. Not all of them-some are too tall to fit in a drawer and I have a tiny one that I don't use much. All of those are in cabinets, which I'll share some other time.

this one has my 2, 3 and 4 quart pans. The white thing in the center is actually a device that you hang on the edge of a door or drawer and use for peelings and such. I rarely use it for that but I discovered it's a nice spot to store lids when I'm using the pot but not the lid.



this one holds my skillets



this one holds our dishes and bowls. This is a temporary divider until I find a better solution. These dishes were a wedding gift and we've been married almost 20 yrs. Needless to say I'm ready for different dishes but I'll definitely get Corelle again.



some mixing bowls, colanders, and my bread slicer thingy



casserole dishes, pie plate, colander for rinsing rice, and a couple of big bowls we use for popcorn. Plus the mixer thing for the ice cream machine and a canning funnel, which I use for putting the ingredients in the ice cream machine.



plastic bags, wraps and foils, plus a device I use when I can't get a jar open



some bags that don't fit in the other drawer, plus plastic gloves, the bread cutting board (my husband doesn't like using the slicer thingy), and the motor part for my stick blender. Plus more temporary dividers.



towels and potholders (my potholders have seen better days-I may be doing some potholder shopping soon) plus scrubbies



silverware plus a few serving utensils and the ever-important ice cream scoop.



spice storage-I really like this so far. On the sides I keep baking powder, kosher salt, chili powder, bouillon, pan grease and whole nutmeg.



measuring cups and spoons-I love not having my measuring cups nested. This way I can easily and quickly grab out the one I need without unstacking. Plus my cookie scoops



various gadget drawers



The drawer below was originally a false front in the door cabinet that was to hold the cooktop. Since we didn't use a cooktop (long story) and got a slide-in range instead, I didn't want that space to be wasted. So we used a drawer system by Blum to make the false front into a drawer. It was very easy to do and it added lots of valuable drawer space.







I also have a few very narrow drawers and had no idea what I'd ever use them for. But I found a use for all of them.

lids and dip cups



cup lids and flappers



decorating supplies



sprinkles and cookie cutters. I separated the cookie cutters by theme and put them in zipper bags so we can just grab out a bag for whatever time of year we happen to be making cookies.




drawer organizers (these are not affiliate links):
oxo adjustable drawer organizer
expand-a-drawer utensil tray
expand-a-drawer spice organizer

linking to:
www.remodelaholic.com

Big fat nothing

There isn't much going on with the house right now. We've moved ourselves in and some furniture. But I haven't finished putting the knobs on the cabinets and I haven't found where to put all the kitchen stuff. So everything is sitting everywhere. Not really picture-worthy scenes. However, I did manage to get my pyrex and other dishes moved over. Most of this was packed and stored in boxes all summer. I had some of it displayed in the old house, but for the most part there was no room. This is the cabinet I posted before that was empty. I used white contact paper to line the inside and shelves and it went from this:


to this:


click here to go to my other blog for close-up pictures and more info

I'm really happy with how the white turned out, and there was no big commitment like paint (which my husband was against-men sure do like the look of wood).

the bottom part of the cabinet is perfect for storing my ninja cooker (which I use a LOT so it's important that it's easy to get to) and my covered cake pans and cupcake pans and larger Tupperware stuff.

Moving in soon

It's been 8 weeks. Crazy, since it was supposed to be 4-6 weeks. It's hard to be on schedule, though, when the workers doing the finish work only show up once a week or so and only stay for a couple of hours. The house isn't 100% done but it's done enough. They'll finish it but we need to get moved in. We have no furnace in our old house now (we moved it to the new one) and it's getting chilly.

So here are some pictures I took today.

Garage-west side (this will have siding eventually)


Front views:




The steps going into the house


And to the basement


Our tiny porch




This is a pullout trash I installed in the kitchen today. It's much cheaper to do it this way than to buy the cabinet with the built in pull out. I bought this at Menard's for about $60 total.


These are 2 extra cabinets for the kitchen. The open one is an old cabinet I had in my craft room. We varnished it and it will hold my vintage pyrex on top and whatever on the bottom. The other one, which doesn't match, is one we bought at a local discount center. It is made of solid wood and was only $160. Only thing is, they don't have a lot of finishes to choose from. I don't mind mixing different wood finishes though. Not at that price. The cabinets that Home Depot has are $199 and made of solid particle board, plus they're totally unfinished. I like this one better. I got the letters from Hobby Lobby.


The ceiling fans-I love that these are switched separately. One wall switch for the fan, and one for the light. I also put a dimmer in the living room so we can dim the lights at night if we want to. This is the one in the living room (same one is in the master bedroom)


And my sewing/craft room


And one of the kids' rooms-anyone who knows my kids will know whose room this is


Plus an area rug from Big Lots that I bought for $30.


The bathroom closet-this will be handy


This isn't finished but here is the backsplash-this is where the cooktop will be. We still need to put the trim on the edges. This stuff is called Aspect Metal Tile and it was pretty easy to install.


And this is an old vintage stool I bought last summer that we repainted and recovered. Click on the picture to go to my other blog post with more info and pictures.

Progress. Barely.

Everything is going very slowly on the house right now. A modular might be faster than having a construction crew come out and build a house right on your lot, but it ain't fast. They do about 2 or 3 hours worth of work about 2 or 3 days each week. I'm sure they're busy and we're not the only people, but some communication would be awesome. We never know who is going to show up or what they're going to do. Especially fun if they need us to be here or need to communicate with another part of the process. Like when the plumber needed to talk to the hvac guy but didn't know when he would be here to do that. It's hard to get the hvac guy to come out with no notice. So anyway the garage is coming along (my husband and his brother are doing most of the garage). It still needs shingles on the roof and siding, plus the overhead door, walk-in door, and windows (which match the house windows)

view from the north side-no openings on this side at all.



view from the west-there will be one more window and on the very left side, a walk-in door.



from the south



and the inside of the garage-the basement stairs are at the very end of it and the door to the house is right next to them.





The carpet was finally laid-here it is in one room (all of the carpet is the same). I would rather have less carpet or none but someone insisted on it in the bedrooms and living room.



And the floor in my sewing/craft room. I love black/white checkerboard floors and wasn't able to get them in the kitchen or bathrooms using sheet vinyl (which I wanted to make it more waterproof) so I got it in here. I love this floor.





And the porch. We're just getting a small 6 x 6 front porch and will be putting a medium size deck on the back of the house next summer. This porch is not done-there will be a gable roof over it and some posts, and a step on one side.

Painted kitchen

The kitchen is painted. We still need to add the backsplash behind the cooktop and also the cooktop and oven (those will obviously be added right when we move in since I still need them in our old house). There's still a lot of dust, plastic, cardboard and other project paraphernalia but here is the kitchen so far. The color is Sherwin Williams Retiring Blue and for the kitchen we used a semi gloss finish. It doesn't look a lot different than the satin though.

The oven and stove area.


The view from the dining area (left doorway goes to the master bedroom and the one on the right goes to the laundry room).


Sink area (fridge obviously will go on the right and the dishwasher to the left of the sink). I am getting a different faucet because I'm spoiled that way. I want one with the built in pull down sprayer. Only one sticky-outy thing to clean around.


The island. This end has solid doors...


and this end has glass doors (taken before the walls were painted).