We are lucky enough to own a house my step-dad built.
During the building process, we had absolutely NO intention of buying it as we already owned a house very close to our jobs in a town just outside of Detroit. This one was not only in the town I grew up in (who wants to be a “townie?”), but also closer to where he and my mom lived.
But as I grew more pregnant with our first son the idea of living closer to my MOMMY (and being a townie) seemed very appealing.
Our house is new, modern and in an amazing neighborhood with a beautiful lake. It is however incredibly efficient in terms of space… good for our heating and cooling bills, but not great for storage or lack thereof (don’t YOU hate it when people on House Hunters say random nouns with artificial enthusiasm as they walk around the house… “oooohhhh wood floors” or “Look…storage!”).
**Note: here would be where I’d link to a cute YouTube video clip montage of people on House Hunters saying “storage” to illustrate my point, but no such thing exists. So get on it already YouTube generation!
Our kitchen lacks [gasp... the HORROR!] a pantry
As I said before, I know, first world problems!
So my solution was first to track down the cabinet manufacturer and buy additional cabinets.
That sounded like a terribly long process. So during a Craigslist search I found an amazing cabinet with a lot of potential.
After months of sitting in my garage, I got to work this past weekend.
I first had to buy my supplies including a paint sprayer, which we hope to also use on the basement ceiling. I was grateful to read a lot of great online reviews including Katie from BowerPower (love her!) who recommended the Graco TrueCoat Plus.
But, safety first.
And fill the many nail holes using a great tool (my finger) and wood filler.
Next… sanding. The style is super primitive so it needed some significant cleaning up.
It also must have been reinforced with the wood from some sort of shipping crate:
And a bit of water damage.
In true “procrastinate it yourself” fashion, I didn’t do the smart thing and remove this wood and replace it with better, more sturdy wood. No I gave my 5-year-old a long screwdriver and let him demo out the bottom part. He was happy as evidenced by this self portrait.
I used my well-loved can of Zinsser B-I-N primer based also on several great online reviews.
When I first opened it up last fall it was terribly runny and thin and I of course got immediately upset with the store who obviously sold me old primer.
After fixing that attitude and some Googling (thank you Glenn Haege! And to my dad for making me listen to the Master Handyman for so many years!), I found indeed it is a bit liquid-ey, but it sticks to anything without sanding, including laminate which I tested last fall on a cheap shelf.
Because of the thin consistency of the primer I used the spray nozzle for stains and other thinner materials for the spray gun. It worked great with some clogging, which I expect will go away when I use regular latex paint on our basement project.
After one coat of primer and two rolled on coats of paint (Sherwin Williams Porpoise) I was able to salvage and paint the hardware with my favorite spray paint Rust-Oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze (great for updating all sorts of old metal and recommended by my DIY heroes John and Sherry at Young House Love).
After waiting ONLY a week in the garage (vs. my typical period of months)… my strong husband helped me bring it in the house yesterday and alas I have storage!
Let’s look at the transformation from hastily painted silver and dirt to something I would hope any House Hunter would respond to with a nicely scripted “oooohhhh… storage:”
There’s nothing like the impending visit of my sister and her beautiful family to convince me to finish up the many not-yet-finished-but-I-really-want-to-so-I-will-stay-up-late-and-not-procrastinate projects!
Now, onto the basement…
