Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Loving on the built-in's.

A couple days ago, I made an ambitious list (see here) And as usual I got a little obessive and distracted and only accomplished doing the dishes and some other minor tasks. Convinced I'd get back on track this morning I started with something fun, the built-in's in the kitchen.


I'll admit it. I feel totally guilty. Here I had begged and whined that I didn't have ANY cool built-in's in prior apartments. Finally, my wish was granted, and I totally abused them. I didn't let them live up to their potential. In fact, they were ugly. Here's an embarrassing before shot:

Don't stop following me just because I have ugly built-in's. I promise, I made it right today! I feel like this picture is from one of those shows where you are convinced the mess/ugliness is staged. Nope, it's not, that's 100% pure clutter mess from us. To make matters worse, a couple weeks ago Colin had a coffee explosion. He sets the timer at night so he can be woken up with fresh coffee, and somehow the pot wasn't sitting in it right and it got over EVERYTHING, down to the bottom shelf cookbooks. In a panic that morning I bleached the crap out of everything and threw all the crap back on the shelves. Since then, it's sat.

First I established what I wanted the shelves to be and what had to remain there. The most useful things on the shelf that must remain are that basket third shelf, which is the home to all things dog/cat (flea meds, brushes, treats etc.) and the (coffee stained) cookbooks. In true TLC-show fashion, I then ripped everything off the shelves and scrubbed them down again with a combo of cleaners and magic-eraser.

The magic eraser didn't do anything (Such as disappointment, since it has been magic with other accidents) but, so it goes, I'm not going to bother repainting it white since we will only be here for another 2-4 months. Plus, my crappy busy property management clearly loves slathering paint all over shelves. This poor guy really needs to be stripped and repainted (nicely) But, that's way out the realm of things I would do here. Maybe in our old house in Sacramento, where our Landlord actually cared about the property, and we worked together. But, I'll stop rambling, here's the exciting AFTER shots!




So I got rid of some of the excess crap on there, and then grabbed some of the extra decor I had from other areas of the house (My hutch was getting a little crowded) The top shelf has the deer that were my Nana's and an etsy print with a couple tiny vintage glasses. Second Shelf: vintage spice jars, vintage grammar prints framed, and a couple of old brass owls. Third Shelf: Metal spice jars from ?, most used cookbooks with a little 1/4 cup pitcher I found thrifting. Bottom Shelf: dog basket reorganized, overflow cookbooks. Oh, and a bonus shot of the coffeepot cleaned up with one of my favorite cards (framed) I picked up from Little Winter sale in Portland, and a silly little cat figurine.

2 comments:

Miss C said...

The shelf looks WONDERFUL. I love the fawns at the top. All of the apartments I've been looking at in Portland have been big fans of slapping new layers of paint on things as well. Lead in the paint? Just cover it!!!

It blows my mind how many places could use just a little bit of work and would be SO much better looking AND the management could charge more.

I guess I should just hold my breath unless I want to start the company that fixes them up in a timely manner because if they took my advice but didn't pay me for it I would be looking at all expensive places.

ps. what are those canisters around the owl?

allison said...

Yeah, we live in a place where the management does a much better job of taking care of our vintage apartment in comparison to other management companies. Although, I wouldn't say they have too much room to brag. ;)

The little canisters around the owl are actually vintage spice jars. They are some sort of plastic/melamine, they all connect on top of each other, but I made them 2 stacks. They have little shaker tops. I don't really have a need for them, but my mom got them for fifty cents at a yard sale and I LOVE the colors! :)