Some New Shelves and New Ideas

I know it's been over 6 months since my last post, but with David working full time while working on his master's degree, there isn't a whole lot of down time to work on house projects. Not to mention I've been feeling lazy and uninspired. That changed when Cait lent me her new Young House Love book and I was once again filled with the desire to change everything in the house.

I'm starting out small with the addition of some new shelving. Since we nearly doubled the square footage of the house by finishing the basement, I have found myself more focused on projects that increase the efficiency of the house as a whole, rather than purely cosmetic changes.

Ever since I moved into this house there have been a couple of cabinets that have bothered me. Can you guess which one it is in this picture?

Oh, hello awkwardly high cabinet. You sure are strangely placed. Admittedly, the extra height is nice for accommodating taller appliances like the coffee maker that we keep under there, but it was nearly impossible for me to reach anything in the higher shelves without standing on a chair. And so I finally came up with a better solution. Open shelves to the rescue!

Things were looking pretty rough after the removal of the offending cabinet. The gross wall had wallpaper on it once upon a time and that flesh tone paint is the original color of the kitchen when David bought the house.

Some spackle and paint improved the situation quite a bit.

Painting and installing a new end piece for the cabinet sealed the deal. Looking good as new.

Then I installed two of Ikea's smallest Lack floating shelves. I made that sound really easy, didn't I? It wasn't. In fact, it was one of those tasks that leaves you kneeling atop the kitchen counter, contemplating where you went wrong in life.

Once the shelves were all loaded up with our coffee and tea paraphernalia, it felt worth the mental anguish.

Goodbye awkwardly high cabinet, hello adorable coffee and tea station!

While I was on a shelf-installing roll, I went into the bathroom to add a couple more shelves above the toilet.

I think I may be even more in love with these. Especially because I can now have plant life in the bathroom without fear of the cats destroying it.

It feels so luxurious to have fancy rolled up towels and whatnot. Does that make me weird? Maybe.

So what's coming up next in the house department? Well, remember at the beginning of this post I mentioned there were multiple awkward cabinets? The others are on the back wall of the kitchen, so we are discussing the idea of removing all of them and replacing them with more open shelving. While we were at it, we would also replace the beadboard backsplash with white subway tile, and possibly even paint the lower cabinets a nice deep navy color.

Are you feeling me? Are you picking up what I'm putting down? I'd love to hear thoughts in the comments since we are still very much in the planning, budgeting, should we even do this in the first place? stages of this project.