Pantry Perfection!

It's been a long time coming, but YAY IT'S DONE!  The pantry is no more, the hoosier-inspired cabinetry is here!  It's taken way longer than I'm proud of, but for many reasons, things move at a slower pace around the W house - and that's the way we like it.

Ready to see more!?

Hoosier progress

I can't believe it, I'm finally ready to say - the base of the hoosier is done!  It's a big accomplishment for me, as it challenged me to do a few things I'd never done before.  Aside from "make a cabinet", the foreign particulars included making a face frame and doors, making drawers with old-fashioned sliders, and installing pre-made sliders on other drawers.

Last weekend, I had a break from working on the commissioned dining room table I'm making (more to come on that in a future post!) and so I went down to the woodshop to get moving on the interior drawers of the hoosier.

Post-August Wrap-Up!

Holy cow!  How long has it been?!  I’m so sorry!!  Summer literally slipped away for us, although I’d hazard to guess it was the same for all of you too?  I guess that means that everyone has been out having fun, which is important before the big Canadian weather starts to move in … not too quickly though, I hope!

I thought I’d do a recap post of our summer as a whole, including whatever building, crafting, and travelling projects we’d done.  I’m going to try and keep it mostly photos, and again leave it to you if you want to hear more about a specific project.

Progress is my middle name

Well, no, it's Kathleen… but you get the idea.

After a lengthy woodshop hiatus, I've managed to get some work done down there in the past couple of weeks.  I'm now done all three drawers and the cabinet door, although I have to sort out a couple of hardware challenges before I can paint everything and put it together for use. GW made a very good point the other day; at least once the drawers and cabinet are done, we can use the base of the hoosier properly and stop using a bookshelf for a pantry.  Tee hee.

DIY Jar Pendant Labels

Oh pantry… I don't miss you (sorry!)

When I knew we were making the switch from pantry to jars, we were going to have to label them somehow.  

There are lots of lovely DIY things online, but a lot of them involve variations of stickers, chalkboard paint or etching.  All of these seemed a little bit too permanent, and also kind of overwhelming for the jars themselves.  I wanted the jars to be what you saw, not big black labels.

And what if one day, we run out of graham cracker crumbs but instead fill the jar with marshmallows?!  The chaos that would ensue without the jar being properly labelled was too much to take :)  And no, we won't have a jar of marshmallows…. not for long anyways.

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day is many things to many people.  For me, it's about spending time with my Mum… and when us Ladies spend time together, we tend to get things done.  Hence the success of our Lady-Do Days!

Well, this year, I was lucky enough to get her as my sidekick from Saturday afternoon until early this afternoon.  Yay Us!  We got to catch up, have some good eats, jaunt around town, etc… and as it happens, get things done.  Not to say that GW and I aren't successful as well, but there's always an unspoken agreement with my Mum and I when we're doing a project.  We seem to think about the same next step at the same time and so one person ends up doing it while the other is taking the next step - does that make sense?

Anywho, thanks to my Mum, and a couple of hands from my Dad when he arrived today, I had a very productive weekend while GW was away.

Spring has Sprung!

Finally!  The warm weather has made it here to our fair town, and as a result, we've spent a few hours out in the yard trying to get things ready for the nice weather to stay.  Every year we're optimistic that we can win the battle of creating a low maintenance garden with the Jumanji we're blessed to own.  But, that's for another post…

Today I'm sharing a bit of what's (finally) been started in the kitchen on the new 'hoosier'!

The latest goings-ons

Hello all?  Are you frozen yet?  It's crazy cold here, and I've actually started to get used to it I think.  It doesn't mean I like it, but I don't step out the back door under false hope of thawed nostrils anymore.

I'm not actually finished much of anything right now, so I thought I'd share a progress post to hilite the many projects I'm splitting my motivation between.  It sounds counterproductive, but as any DIY Craftsperson will tell you, one can't always be assured that your motivation will go in a straight line.  Or maybe just my Mum would say the same… so then it's a genetic problem, and we'll begin the search for a cure… once we're finished what we're working on.

Anyways… kitchen island, woodworking, kitchen floor, dollhouse, etc…

Kitchen Motivation

On another snowy night, I thought I'd share some inspiration with you as it's constantly going through my mind right now.  That's right, the motivation to get the kitchen "pantry" done has returned!

Do I have the time to build it… or have I laid the tile that needs to be done first?  Nope :-)   But I can dream, right?  So what am I dreaming about...

Framing: Never again

I've found something I hate about renovation work, more than I hate putty and sanding chores.

Framing around a furnace pipe with a bend in it.

First - I've never done any framing.  Period.  Second - I wanted to minimize the space that was lost, so it was more complicated than just going floor to ceiling around it.  Such a pain.

BUT, it's done.

Quick update: Fridge!

Guess what came today.... our new fridge!  Yayyyy!!

It's much tinier than the other monster (that's now sitting in the dining room - anyone want a 30" fridge?), and one of the best parts is that it's counter depth so it's set back into the nook better.  The previous one actually stuck out beyond the doorway to the dining room by a few inches.  It was kind of a distraction from the beautiful woodwork of the door trim.

Not anymore!

Destruction done!

This post is a few days overdue (sorry Mom!) but I have been pummelled by a migraine in various levels of misery since Sunday.  Thankfully, we had actually gotten most of this done before the weekend was out, but I didn't have the energy to post it.

So what was done?  Everything to get us to the point of rebuilding the pantry again.  Yay!!!

Pipe moved, humidity added!

I'm a little low on energy for a Thursday night, but here are the hilites of the adventure today

The adventure where I was at work, trying to envision the furnace pipe moving problems happening at home, sans photos.

Backside nails

But progress is progress, right?

When we last left the renovation... three days ago... I had gotten stuck.

I had to wait for the wise words of "Ralph" to come visit, and here's why

Lady-Do... Demolition

Well, we did it.  Most of it.

We only ate 6-8 brownies between us.

It was dusty.  There were tight spaces to manoeuvre.  It was quite well built with attention to detail (door trim on the INSIDE of the cupboard). 

... and I didn't cut myself :)

The Kitchen begins!

Yippeeeee!!!  

Many moons ago, I saw a picture on Pinterest that I loved.  And of course, I had to find a way to put it in our house.

With the Music Room being 99% complete, the guilt of starting a new project is relatively minor.... SOOO, this weekend's Lady-Do involves a little demolition.