Extra Kitchen Storage

We try to make the most out of the space in our kitchen.  Unfortunately, there isn't much in the line of storage space.  I was browsing Craigslist one night last fall and found a picture of an old "phone stand."  You know, back in the day when people actually had a big ol' phone with an answering machine, phone books, etc. they needed a classy place to hold all of that "stuff."  I'm guessing the man who was selling it had downsized to a cell phone like most people and no longer needed that huge thing to hold his tiny cell.  Well, I saw that ugly old thing and said, "We need that!  For our coffee pots and ugly cookbooks!"  And we bought it.

Wouldn't a couple of Yellow Pages fit so nicely in those cubbies on top?  Not anymore!

I gave it a coat of primer and painted that phone stand a nice, crisp white.

I love you, white paint.  You make just about anything prettier!

Now I use this bad boy as a place to store my cookbooks and our coffee maker.

The pretty cookbooks that get used the most get the prime real estate space on top.

Our espresso makers and coffee press fit nicely inside of this section.

The ugly, awkward cookbooks belong behind this cupboard door.  Sorry, Betty Crocker.  I love your cookbook.  However, the fact that you come in a binder makes it difficult to play nicely with other cookbooks.  Basically, you take up a lot of space.  I also store my Food Network and Cooks' Illustrated magazines in there.

Thanks for selling us your phone stand, sir.  We really appreciate it!  So do our countertops!

A Window Box Tutorial

I've been waiting for these window boxes for two years.  They were worth the wait.  I was able to think about how I really wanted them to look.  I did a lot of research and looked through my photos of our trip to Boston.  When we went there a couple of years ago I (like many others) fell in love with their window boxes.  The (lucky) people who live in Beacon Hill do the most amazing things to their window boxes.  We went in the fall and they were decorated so beautifully!  I was so inspired and asked my husband if he thought he could build me some.

We started by finding the most reasonably priced wood (we used pine) we could at our local hardware store.  Jason basically built your average window box to start.  Please pardon the dark, basement pictures.

Here he is nailing it together in our basement on a rainy day.

We took them outside to fill nail holes and sand them.  Here are the filled nail holes.  There were a lot of them.  Sometimes Jason goes a little overboard with the nail gun, which I guess is a good thing, since the window boxes will be exposed to the elements.

Here are the three window boxes after they were built.  The two on the left are for the front of the house.  The one on the right is for the back under my kitchen window.

I primed them and painted them.  I did one coat of KILZ 2 Latex primer (multi-purpose stainblocker) and three coats of an exterior semi-gloss white paint (Olympic).

Here is the molding.  It is made out of PVC and according to my husband, is really easy to work with.  I'll tell you that it paints up easily as well.  We caulked the gaps in the molding and between the wood and the molding with DAP Dynaflex 230 Premium Indoor/Outdoor Sealant.

Jason cut and mitered it and then nailed it into place.

Here are some before pictures of our windows sans window boxes.

Jason found these heavy duty, zinc-plated brackets (8" x 1-1/4")  to hold up the window boxes.  Since we were mounting them on our Lannonstone house, we used Tapcon Concrete Anchors (3/16" x 1-3/4").  We drilled into the actual stone instead of the mortar since the mortar would not have held the weight of the window boxes once they were filled.  He drilled the hole with a Tapcon carbide tipped concrete drill bit (5/32" x 5-1/2").  He also put a bead of silicone over the screw heads to prevent them from rusting.  To drill the holes he used the hammer drill feature on his drill.

Jason drilled two drainage holes on each end.

Here are the finished window boxes with the plastic planters inside.

I love the fact that they dress up the font of our house a little bit and add some curb appeal.

Thank you for the window boxes, Jason!  Boston, thanks for the inspiration!

*****

I am linking this up at Tatertots and Jello, which you can find here,

Home Stories A to Z, which you can find here,

Between Naps on the Porch, which you can find here, and

A Beach Cottage, which you can find here!

All are such lovely blogs! Check them out!

Window Box Lettuce

My husband is making me window boxes.  We'll have two in the front of the house and one in the back.  I planted flowers in the liners a couple of weeks ago already so that the flowers wouldn't be delayed.  In my back window box, I planted lettuce.  Weird, I know.  But for some reason I needed to grow pretty and delicious lettuce in that window box.  And do you want to know what is really great?  I can open up my kitchen window and cut myself some lettuce any old time I want to.  (When those window boxes are done, that is).

Here is what I have planted in there:

I snipped off what I needed for dinner,

washed it in very cold water, drained it, and

made some dressing.

I went to the my herb garden and picked three different types of basil.  The purple basil is called "Basil Red Rubin" and the smaller kind on the bottom is from a "Basil Minette" plant. 

I sliced them up real nice.

I also picked two different types of mint:  lemon mint and plain, old ordinary mint.

I sliced them up as well.

I added my herbs to the salad along with some blue cheese.  I drizzled my dressing on top and

voila!  Salad, anyone?

Here is my "recipe" for the dressing.

1/3 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice (fresh is best)

a pinch of sugar (or more to taste)

1/2 teaspoon of salt

freshly ground black pepper

Whisk in a bowl or shake in a jar the above ingredients.  Pour over salad and toss to coat just before serving. 

Living Room Crown Moulding

Our living room used to look like this.

Only with furniture.

It was kind of ugly.  To us, anyway.

I would describe the color of the woodwork in our house as orange.  We knew it had to go.  And those doorknobs?  Yeah.  Beautiful.  Those were out as well.

 

A couple of weeks ago we moved everything into our dining room so that we could get this room painted and looking much less orange.  The color of the room before was a dark brownish tan.  We moved into our house five years ago and hated the color then.  We knew we wanted to paint it, but could not ever decide on a color.  After we bought our couch last year we finally settled on a color.  We chose Oatland Subtle Taupe by Valspar.  It is a signature interior semi-gloss.

The boys are always such troopers when we do projects.  They love tools and watching us work on projects.  They also did some of this:

We started out by painting the ceiling and then moved onto the walls.  The color on the left is the new paint.  Isn't it brighter and cheerier?  Our living room is TINY, and the dark color made it so cave-like.

After we finished painting the walls, I moved onto the trim.  This picture was taking with only one coat of paint but the difference is so amazing to me.  No more orange!  Hooray for small miracles.

Here is a picture of our crammed full dining room.  Nice, eh?

Here is my handyman installing the first piece of crown moulding.

During the moulding installation, we used this handy tool.  It is a crown moulding support and is made by Rockler.  Since there were only two of us, this tool made the job super easy by holding one end of the moulding in place while I held the other side.  Jason was free to do whatever he needed to do to get the piece of moulding nailed into place. 

This is a close-up of my husband coping the moulding.  That's right, folks.  No cheating here.  We're anal like that.  :)  Let's just say that the folks at This Old House would be proud.

Here are my two boys, happy as clams while playing on ladders.  Also, I forgot that I'm not supposed to ask Oliver to smile because this is what I get.  Nice smile, Ollie!

Aww.

Three walls complete!

After we installed moulding on all four walls, we caulked the filled nail holes, sanded, caulked the edges, and then painted.

Here is the completed room before we moved in the furniture.

Here is the completed room!  This project was a big undertaking but we are very happy with the results!

I am still on the lookout for curtains, but for now the brown ones will do.

Even though our living room is tiny, it appears bigger because it looks cleaner and brighter, don't you think?

I am linking this up to: 

Metamorphosis Monday on Between Naps on the Porch!  Check it out!

View Along the Way