Walls. It's Nice to Have Them.

Hallelujah, it's starting to look like a room again!  This week, the drywall went up, was mudded and sanded, and brought my house into an absolute state of FILTH.  Even with the tarps up, that drywall dust just seeps its way through every nook and cranny.  I'm pretty sure it's alive and has figured out a way to permeate plastic like some sort of intergalactic plasma goo.  I can even feel the dust in between my toes, with socks AND shoes on.  Yuck.

Oh kitchen, how I cannot wait to walk through your doorway again.

The new doorway studs into the living room have been closed up, and the walls and ceiling have gotten a coat of primer.  Things are moving in the right direction!!

Is heaven on the other side of the plastic?
That glowing blu orb sure looks like it.

The outlets are finally at even heights!
I can sleep easy tonight.

My window wall into the dining room has been temporarily closed up to help tame the dust.
What's taped up there, you ask?
Only my cabinet layout...it's finally time!!

The floors are also going in- I bought salvaged hardwood from the Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit - hooray for less environmental waste!  Everyone is jumping on the "salvaged goods" bandwagon - check out this great article from the Huffington Post to see what some of the incredibly talented people in Detroit are doing with salvaged materials from the city!!

Guitars from Detroit wood?  Check.

Because the floors were removed from someone's else's house, they aren't in perfect shape, and the boards are shorter than most brand new board lengths would be.  Once installed, they'll be sanded down and refinished to match (as closely as we can get it anyway) the existing hardwoods that they will butt up against.  I'm excited about all of this- because they aren't "brand new", I have zero worries about dropping a knife or splashing bacon grease on them.  They'll already be worn in, so I can enjoy them to the fullest! And let's just hope that when I DO drop a knife, it stabs into the hardwood, and not into my foot.  I have squeamish nightmares that this will happen one day.

It's been moved from the basement to the kitchen floor...baby steps!

The appliances also were delivered this week, so now I've got my full new kitchen sitting in my garage.  We unpacked the cabinets from the boxes, with only one fatality- one cabinet door was scuffed up.  Lowe's has promised to deliver a new door within 5-7 business days, and the scuff won't delay installation at all- thank goodness for small favors!

They're crying to be brought inside.
And I'm crying for that white stove to be sold.  Come on, Craigslist!!

Things are moving along! Hopefully we'll see some great progress within the next week- removing and rebuilding the guts of the kitchen is over...on to the pretty stuff!!!

Wanna Get in my Drawers?

So, we're obviously talking about DRESSER DRAWERS today...geesh.  What kind of drawers were you thinking?

A few years ago, we had a contractor come in and bust out a wall in the attic bedroom (excuse me, Master Bedroom) of our bungalow.  He pushed the wall back into the eaves of the roof 4 feet, and created some much needed closet space.  In doing so, he also had to rip out one set of drawers that were built into the wall.  We were able to keep the second set, so we still have one built in dresser.  I love old houses and their quirks!

Drawer Skeletor.

Boxes o' beauty.

In the meantime, I had four large drawers to DIY into something fantastic.  What to do with them?  Turn them into bookshelves?  Attach casters and use as under the bed storage?  Burn them?  At the time, I was working on organizing the basement, and needed some extra storage space, so the decision was made...drawers to shelving it was!

Yes, I can count.  I know this is a picture of only three drawers, and I had four to work with.
Congratulate yourself on being observant.

Bun feet.  The name just makes me want to give someone a hug.
Weird, right?

Since I completed this project 2 years ago, I don't have any other pictures of the process, but it's pretty easy to create a picture in your head.  Here you go:

1.  Unscrew drawer handles.
2. Plop one drawer on top of the other with the drawer faces touching each other.
3. Screw a nut and bolt through each drawer handle hole in order to attach the drawers together.
4. Attach old wooden bun feet from another scrapped project onto the bottom of the lower drawer.
5. Have a nice young gentleman at Lowe's cut pegboard for you to attach to the inside of the drawers, screw up the measurements slightly, and offer you 15% off for his mistake.
6. Smile and take him up on his offer.
7. Paint drawers with an obnoxious color just for fun.
8. Attach pegboard to insides of drawers with nuts and bolts. (Don't forget to put small scrap pieces of wood behind the pegboard so it sticks away from the drawer a bit! You want to be able to actually use the pegboard!)
9. Use s-hooks and other fun organizing peg board pieces to create easy access to your most frequently used tools, painting supplies, etc.

Pea-green in all its glory.  Don't mind all of the paint on the floor
that has yet to find an organized home.

I never said it was pretty...just basement functional!

Presto chang-o!  Wasn't that fun?  If you have extra drawers lying (or is it laying?  Grammar police, come attack, please!)  around, don't toss them, reuse them! 

I still have 2 drawers leftover just waiting for a new life.  As I'm currently creating a fabulous basement craft room, they just might get their wish soon!!

And now, a picture of me dressed up as Where's Waldo?  Why, you ask?  Why the hell not?

Side note: this was Halloween 2011- there was school that day,
and I did call down several kids to my office to suspend them while dressed like this.
First and only day that nobody was pissed for being suspended.