Kitchen cabinets

Several weeks ago we painted our kitchen. We went from a hideous orange to a deliciously creamy brown aptly named "cup of cocoa." And you know how these things go: one project always leads to another. In prepping the room for painting, I removed a desk we kept in the kitchen to hold cookbooks and office supplies. It opened up the space so much that I decided not to return it to the kitchen. But that meant finding a new home for all the cookbooks and office supplies (plus all the other junk that always sat on top the desk).

So one afternoon I decided to haul up a dusty file cabinet from the basement, a monstrosity that has been there since before we moved in -- and, judging from the paint splatters and debris around it, probably before our home's previous owner moved in too. The files and labels indicated that it had been used by a law office, and I'll admit that I hoped to find something valuable inside. Maybe the deed to a diamond mine, or something?

Alas, all I found were some giant envelopes and three two-hole paper punches. So I had to make myself content in seeing the cabinet itself as a treasure.

The huge drawers were definitely a plus.

But on the other hand, the hugeness of the whole thing made it pretty difficult to drag up from the basement. I should have waited for my husband to come home from work, but you know how these things go. It had to come up, and it had to be then.

Also, have I mentioned I'm six months pregnant?

Noticing I was struggling a bit, Sam offered his services. "I have big muscles." He said. "See?"


And how could I argue with proof like that? So I let Sam and Grace each carry one of the (lightweight) metal supports from inside the drawers. And somehow, we managed to get it all outside.

I thought it would be a quick job; just a quick scrub and sand, and then prime and paint. I had everything I needed in the garage, so I planned to be done in a couple hours. And then, you know how things go (you do know, don't you?), I ran out of spray paint after a single drawer front. And even worse, that paint didn't stick. So when my sweet husband got home, he lugged the whole thing into the garage so it wouldn't get rained on while I figured out my next step.

In the end, what was supposed to be an afternoon project ended up taking two trips to the hardware store and an additional week to complete. I sanded and sprayed and sanded again. Then I ditched the idea of spray paint altogether and used high gloss latex and a roller.

The finished piece turned out pretty well, I guess. Except that it's boring. I didn't think of this until after I was done, but if I was going to go to the trouble to repaint a giant file cabinet, I should have done something that didn't look exactly like what you'd find at Office Max. I should have done something pretty and interesting.

But oh well. It's done. And it's huge. And it holds everything I wanted it to, plus some. One drawer is for cookbooks, one is for canned food, one holds a giant crate of dog food, and one is for recyclable trash. I love being able to have all that stuff handy, but not out in the open. And function is nearly as important as cuteness, right?

Fortunately, the project I tackled between coats on the file cabinet went much more smoothly. And cutely.

I bought this little green cabinet for $4 at a thrift store many months ago. I feel like my house is in constant need of more storage, so I grabbed it up, even though I didn't have a real plan for it. It stayed in our front entry, empty, for several months.

I wasn't wild about the color (although it did match strangely well with the old green paint inside some of our closets!), but I liked the hand-crafted-by-grandpa feel of it. It's sturdy, and well-made, but not fancy. I decided to decorate it like a grandma might, like a giant doily. First I gave the whole thing a coat of cup-of-cocoa, and then I draped it in lace and shot it with white spray paint.

There are sections where the lacy pattern is blurry, and some where the pattern is crisp -- an accidental effect that I really like a lot. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, in part because it just came together so quickly and easily. I spent probably half an hour on minor drawer repairs, and then another half hour painting. AND THAT'S IT! It was loaded and in my kitchen within hours.

Eventually I'll get curtains up and windows washed and show you the whole kitchen--with these fancy new cabinets!--in context. That is, if I can ever manage to get the floor mopped and the dishes done at the same time. But at least, with all this new storage, I can finally keep my counters clear.

Appreciation

Sam had a wonderful year in pre-K, so I wanted to do something special for the good folks took such great care of him along the way.

First was Mrs. S, his teacher. Mrs. S is that perfect combination of warmth and enthusiasm ideally suited for teaching. And she has the patience of a saint, which helps too, especially when dealing with a classroom of 4 to 5-year-olds. So when I heard her mention that she missed having a rocking chair in her classroom -- that in all her previous classrooms at other schools she'd had one -- I knew what her gift had to be.

I watched craigslist for a sturdy, inexpensive, rocking chair. It didn't take long before this little sweetheart came up. I happily shelled out $20 and brought it home.

This finish was in great shape, so painting it almost seemed inappropriate. But I did it anyway because I wanted to personalize it. Sam picked out fabric for a new cushion ($1.50 a yard), and together we decided to paint it black to match his fun jaguar print. I used scrapbook stickers to stencil the word "delphinium" on the back.

(Here's the story behind that: When we picked out seeds for our garden in early spring, Sam was smitten with delphiniums. (Unfortunately, none of the seedlings survived long enough to make it into the ground!) I'm not sure whether it was the word or the picture that intrigued him so, but for the next several weeks he mentioned them frequently, including several times at school. Mrs. S just couldn't get enough of his 4-year-old articulation, and said the word "delphinium" would forever more remind her of him. It seemed a fitting way to sign/dedicate/customize the chair without an ostentatious inscription like "Painted by Diana!")

If you view the pictures full-size you will notice the many flaws in the finish. I used spray paint, which bubbled up in several places where I hadn't sanded well enough to get all of the old varnish off. I couldn't ever get those areas smooth, even after sanding the bubbled areas and painting again. I also had some trouble distressing the edges. I like the lightly distressed look, but I found I had a hard time deciding where and how much to distress. (All the tutorials say "where the chair would wear naturally," but I still don't know what that means, exactly.) So I did some sanding and repainting and resanding.

Still, I'm pleased with the finished results. Mrs. S was too. She actually got a little teary-eyed, and said she'd never received a present like that. When she sat down, she exclaimed "It has that perfect rocking chair creak, too!" I bashfully admitted I'd tried to fix that (with some glue and finishing nails), but she said "Oh, no. You want that sound. It's perfect background noise for nap time."

I'm really glad she liked it.

My total for this project was about $25; $20 for the chair, $1.00 for fabric, another $1.00 for the cushion insert (from inside a $1.00 Salvation Army pillow), and $3.50 for a can of spray paint.

For her teacher's aide, Mrs. Mc, I made a bag in matching jaguar fabric and a set of jungle/zoo themed jewelry.

I'll admit the jewelry set was thrown together the morning of Sam's graduation, and I had my doubts about how it was going to turn out. But in the end I really liked it. I think the mixed metals and materials work well here. As an added bonus, most of what I used was from my purchased-on-clearance/handed-down-from-other-crafters stash, so my total material cost for the jewelry set was probably about $1.00. Add that to the 50 cents worth of material for the bag, and that's a pretty affordable gift!

Mrs. Mc was a little harried when Sam gave her the gift, so we didn't get to see her open it. But I hope she likes it too. I'll have to watch for her in the fall to see if I can catch her wearing it.

Speaking of harried, the gifts for Sam's bus driver and bus aid were thrown together in a hurry too. I had planned to bake a batch of cookies to take out to the bus stop for them, but decided the night before that was too boring. What good is a batch of cookies without a cute tote to deliver them in? So pulled out some fabrics from my stash and had Sam pick two.

He ended up choosing the same prints I used to make Arabella's purse (blogged here) last month. It was cute how specific he was; the polka dot pattern was for Miss K, and the flower print was for Miss Ashley.

I made the bags, two reversible totes with ribbon closures, in record time. I was so proud of myself when I finished and had them loaded with cookies a whole TEN MINUTES before the bus was scheduled to arrive. I was just taking them outside to photograph when the bus pulled up EARLIER THAN IT HAD EVER ARRIVED in my entire year of meeting the bus. So, no photos. But you can use your imagination: same style and size as the one for Mrs. Mc, but in Arabella's pretty black and white prints, and with a pink ribbon closure. Then imagine them stuffed with cookies and pink tissue paper, and delivered flower-side-out for Miss Ashley and polka-dot-side-out for Miss K. And that's how it all went down.

Since these purses were made entirely from material that had been in the stash for years, I'm calling them free.