Inside Job

Our kitchen redo has been on my mind for quite sometime, were planning to redo our kitchen over a time span. I how now idea how long that will be. But I've been wanting to tackle a few mini projects in our kitchen. So I decided to give the inside kitchen cabinets a mini makeover. The cabinet where we keep our everyday dinnerware only had two shelves. Which created a huge problem trying to fit our everyday dinnerware on to two shelves.

Not to mention, Mr CLH would put the dishes away in a way that would bug me, big dishes on top of little dishes. Please tell me I'm not the only one who shoots evil glares at the one they love after opening cabinet doors! The easiest solution for my problem, was to add another shelf. I did some measurements of our excising shelves and stopped in Lowes and had a new shelf cut, the new shelf was only $5 bucks. As you can see the new shelf stood out and helped the extra storage.

Along with our new shelf, I also wanted to do an inside cabinet makeover with some paint. The inside of the cabinet looked like laminate faux bois and not in a good way. Plus I wanted the inside of cabinet to look pretty.


I got some color inspiration from the September issue of Martha Stewart Living. I love the pretty color of her cabinets and went to Home Depot to check out her new paint collection.

I instantly I fell in love with her shades of grey. I had four grey contenders top left: Driftwood Grey, Flagstone. Bottom right: Bedford Grey and Sharkey Grey. After looking the the colors, we decided to with Sharkey Grey, its a perfect greige { grey + beige } it also compliments our wall color Woodrow Wilson Putty by Valspar. It's just a little darker which good. 

After removing the shelves, I sanded the inside of the cabinets and then applied two coats of oil based primer { I let each coat of primer dry one hour before applying the second coat } I did the same thing with the wood shelves. I painted the inside of the cabinet sides and top and the shelves with Delicate White by Olympic paint the back is where I used the Sharkey Grey by Martha Stewart Paints. I liked the subtle contrast of the Sharkey Grey next to the white.

Here's how our first mini makeover in our kitchen turned out. The subtle grey back of cabinets looks so pretty against our white dinnerware. I kept our basic Ikea glasses on the bottom shelf along with our coffee cups. Then our plates on the second shelf, then our various size bowls. The tippy top shelf looks all dressed out with our cake stands, teapot, pitcher etc.

With the inside of the cabinets getting a mini makeover, our everyday dinnerware is feels much more Martha Stewart. Which as Martha would say is a good thing.

Soon the doors on this cabinet will have glass panels, which will make this mini project more complete. How do you like our little mini cabinet project? Do you have any mini projects your working on?

Finishing Up Some Projects

We've been finishing up some projects around our Casa, and I can't wait to share soon! Here's a little glimpse of one of the projects that's almost done. A little building project.

The projects I'm working on include the following tools: primer, paint, wood glue, sewing machine, and a trip to Ikea & the Goodwill. Notice I listed Ikea and Goodwill as a tool, lol.

Any guesses what I'm working on? Hint 'It's and Inviting Upgrade' What proejcts are you working on?

Project List Update: January

At the begining of the year I decided to keep a monlthy project list to stay on track.

My Goals & How I Actually Did

Paint Bedroom Dresser - Dresser Primed! Need to buy paint

Paint Small Desk for Sons Room - Didn't even touch his desk

Paint bench for bedroom - Done!

Order fabric for bench - Done! See bench here

Sew Pillow Covers - Fabric Cut, will sew over weekend?

Create Mood Boards for Master Bedroom - No board but lots of ideas

& Sons Bedroom - Ideas in my head, nothing concrete

Finally find the perfect faux or engineered flooring for Dining Room & Kitchen - DONE! We have all our flooring and have ripped up all the tile, next up is installing our new floors. This project slowed down some above projects.

I'm feeling pretty good about getting at least 2 projects done, it looks like other items will move into Feb. This project list has really kept me focused and motivated, to at least try at get a bunch of stuff done....What keeps you motivated to get your projects done?

January Project List

To keep from slacking focused I decided to start a project list for each month, I will update the project list at the end of the month.

January 2010 To Do:

Paint Bedroom Dresser

Paint Small Desk for Sons Room

Paint bench for bedroom

Order fabric for bench

Sew Pillow Covers

Create Mood Boards for Master Bedroom & Sons Bedroom

Finally find the perfect faux or engineered flooring for Dining Room & Kitchen

It looks like Janaury will invlove ALOT of painting.