A Room a Month- Kitchen Update

Now that it's March, I thought I would update you on the kitchen progress. This room required a lot of work without much visual reward. Case in point, here's the before picture of the kitchen:

And here's the after (from the same angle):

You can tell it's the "after" because of the calendar on the fridge. January was the Texas flag in a field of bluebonnets. March is a much more disturbing picture of an armadillo. We like to scare the crap out of people when they visit! Come over anytime.

There are visual changes in the kitchen, though you can't really see them from this angle.

See? It is different. I took the doors off one set of cabinets so we could have some open shelving and display our very colorful (and pretty!) dishes.

Then I lined the back of the cabinet with wrapping paper, and voila! Instant color. It really does brighten up the space, despite what it may look like here.

Additionally, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. A lot. I took every single thing out of every single cabinet and wiped every available surface. I cleaned the coffee maker, the oven, the refrigerator, and the microwave. I labeled.

Oh, how I labeled.

I also rearranged a couple of cabinets to make things more functional. I didn't show a before picture of this cabinet because it was just too embarrassing. Let's just say, for sake of argument, that this cabinet looked like a Tupperware party and a cookbook store got married and started procreating willy-nilly. Now, it's organized bliss.

One last thing, I decided to make the big switch from plastic tupperware-esque containers to glass ones since "they" say you shouldn't microwave things in plastic anymore. I bought a set of nesting glass containers with lids at Costco for $20, and so far, it has met all of our food-storage needs.

I would have loved to get a new rug for the kitchen, but I couldn't find one I liked enough to spend the money on. For now, the one we have works fine. Mainly, February was all about cleaning and discovering just how dirty a kitchen can get in six months (the answer is pretty dirty).

March's room- here we come!

February Room a Month

It's February--which means it's time to tackle another room. This month, the kitchen is on the agenda, and I've got quite a task ahead of me.

I have several issues with the kitchen, the first being that the room gets no natural light. It's tucked back in a corner, which makes for a very efficient layout, but it's a little gloomy without any sunlight. Since I can't exactly change that, I do want to brighten the room up a bit.

Which brings me to my next point. When we moved in, Richard commented that our kitchen looks like the Apple store. Everywhere you look, it's white. I want to liven the room up with even more color.

Additionally, when we moved in here, we had SO much more space than in our old kitchen, and I wasn't exactly sure how to efficiently arrange things in the cabinets. Now that we've lived here a while, I have a much better idea of what's working (and what's not). I plan to rearrange some of what's going on behind those oh-so-white cupboards.

Finally, though Rich and I keep the kitchen pretty clean on a day to day basis, it could use a good deep cleaning. I plan on wiping down all the cabinets (inside and out), sweeping and mopping behind the appliances, and basically just cleaning in all the nooks and crannies.

Next time you see this room, it will be more functional, cleaner, and, hopefully, prettier too!

Bathroom remix

Here is the revamped bathroom, in all it's glory.

A few notes. I did in fact switch out the shower curtain, and I like this one much better here. The yellow and white curtain definitely brightens up the room.

The first step I took was to reorganize under the sink and in the medicine cabinet.

Just those steps alone have made the bathroom feel so much more functional. A bonus is not being hit in the face by flying objects when opening the medicine cabinet.

Next, I added some hidden storage on the shelf with a big basket, purchased for $13 at Home Goods.

All of Charlie's treats, bath supplies, extra collars and medicine are in the basket. You can see into the basket a little bit, but not really that much. At any rate, it's better than the giant bottle of vinegar that was there before, right!?

Next, I added some accessories.

The candlestick was $4 on clearance at Target, and the bud vase was $.50 at Goodwill. The tealight holder was free because we already had it.

The top of the shelf is a handy place to store cotton balls, q-tips, and things that are too tall to fit in the medicine cabinet. I already had these cups as well as the crystal pineapple. The white tray was purchased for $4 at Home Goods.

I added shelf paper that I already had, as well as a third (non-matching) basket that was lying around. Scraping problem solved.

These two small pictures are hung above the toilet. The frames were on clearance at Home Goods for $2 each, due to their unfortunate peach color. I slapped on a coat of paint (that I already had), and they are as good as new. The "artwork" inside is from Ikea- I bought several 5 packs of art cards a while back that were on clearance for $.10. I'm not crazy about the prints here, so maybe I will change it if I ever think about it again.

All in all, I just made a few small changes that make a big difference (to me at least). Which room should I tackle in February?

Month 1: Master Bathroom, before

So, I promised an update on my room a month challenge, but another project I'm working on got in the way. When I found out Amanda (my sister) was pregnant, I offered to make her custom bedding for the nursery. It turns out that making a quilt is rather time consuming. I don't want to post pictures yet, but here's a sneak peak, chalk lines and all.

Okay, on to the bathroom! The master bathroom in our new apartment is substantially bigger than the one at our old apartment.

Honestly, this has been more of a curse than a blessing, as our smaller bathroom required that we stick to some very strict organization. In this bathroom, we had so much more space, I didn't organize things quite as well. For example, our old vanity was less than half of the size of this new one.

When we moved in, I remember telling my mom on the phone, "We'll never be able to fill up all of the space under the sink!" Oh how the mighty have fallen.

We also have a rather unruly medicine cabinet. I hate mirrored medicine cabinets. How does one keep a mirror clean if there are new fingerprints every morning?! Whose dumb idea were these things?

We also have some little cubbies right next to the shower. Rich and I each have a cubby and the third is used for washcloths.

The baskets work great for hiding our stuff, but black baskets on tan paint means a big mess.

The last area I plan to spruce up is this shelf. It sits right next to the shower, opposite the toilet. The top shelf is used to store towels, and the bottom shelf is used to store, well, whatever else I put there. Little known fact about us: when we got married, if we already had something, we didn't register for it. Since we already had fully functioning (albeit non-matching) towels, we decided to just keep them. I often regret that decision, especially when I'm faced with this view. Sadly, new towels aren't in the budget for this little spruce up.

So here's the plan.

1. The shower curtain is in perfect condition, but I'm tired of looking at it all the time. So, I'm going to switch this shower curtain with the one in the guest bathroom.

2. I'm going to add shelf paper to the cubbies, after scrubbing them well, to prevent any further damage.

3. Reorganize under the sink. It's really not that messy under there- it just looks crazy!

4. Add some hidden storage to the bookshelf in the form of a big basket on the lower shelf. This basket will house all of Charlie's stuff (from the other bathroom).

5. Add accessories and artwork to tie the whole room together.