Dresser Salvage

I heart free stuff.  There was a house down the road (a single mom) who was moving, and to save some of the hassle, she was giving away certain things that they didn't want to move, or didn't fit in the new house.  J and I quickly snatched up this small dresser as I had big plans to use it as extra storage in my office/craft space.  It was a wooden dresser, unfinished, and in pretty bad shape, but I knew I could do something with it.  Two of the drawers were chewed by a dog, and there was no saving them.  The knobs were also unfinished wood.  I sanded it, painted it with a flat no-so-bright-white paint, stained the top with Rustoleum's Early American stain, and then roughed it up with the sander.  I removed the knobs and spray painted them with rubbed bronze spray paint, they turned out really pretty, and it saved me from having to buy 11 new knobs!  After painting, I sealed it with a a stain spray sealant.

For the empty drawer compartments, we used some Gorilla Glue and put in some thin white panels we had laying around from another project to make a shelf for some baskets, in place of the damaged drawers.

I looked for about a week, when I finally found these at Michael's.  I hadn't seen these the first trip, but they were the perfect size and fit nicely.  I like the different browns in the baskets, I think it ties the lighter top in with the darker knobs.

You can't beat free!  And the extra storage has been so nice!  Plus I have a better place to put my gargantuan printer.  The little plastic drawers it was sitting on were giving out.  I'm pretty proud of this project, I did (almost) all of it by myself:)  Jason helped a little.

A Work Bench For Me!

After my sweetness disappeared outside for a while one afternoon, I went to see what he was up to.  He was out in our shed, cleaning it out, and figuring out a plan on how to add a work space for me in our smallish work area/shed.  It was going to be complete with a flip up design so that we can move it to get our Christmas tree in and out of the corner come that time (which is SOON!).  With this plan, we needed to run to Lowe's for a few supplies.  Hinges, hooks/latches, and wood.  After wandering around this hardware wonderland, we just couldn't justify spending 30.00 on a piece of plywood that we were only going to use about a third of!  That's when we happened upon the scrap (already cut) pieces by the big cutting machine, 3 pieces about the perfect size were just being tossed off.  After flagging someone down, we asked if we could buy scrap pieces, and the guy told us we could just take them.  YES!  He just saved us 30 buckaroos, making the whole project a little under 25 dollars.  He made my day.  Well, after J did by configuring this whole project.  I got my day made twice;o)  So, home we went with the wood spanning the length of our car, over the folded down seats, and into the trunk.  But it fit.

 

Taking the wood home to get started.

 

 

Our 3 free pieces.

 

 

After some more planning, we decided to use the Kreg to butt two of the pieces together to make the top, then J framed out the bottom for extra support.  (The third piece of free wood is going to go on the top of an old broken saw horse to become a spray painting bench for me.)

 

Getting ready to attach the table top to the wall.  It was way heavier than it looked!

Added the hinges on the top to fold up, and then put on the hinged table legs that would swing down out of the way of aforementioned tree (see corner).  J also put little leg stops that are low enough on the floor that we won't trip over them, but just high enough to keep the legs in place when the table is in use.  Smart fella, that J.

Then we added two hooks to attach it to the wall in the up position when needed.

Folded up, it is so functional.

 

And then I got to add all of my stuff!  What you can't see is the other side of the shed where J's work bench is.  Mine is so much neater and prettier.  He keeps trying to sneak some of his overflow over from his bench to mine.  I'm hip to his tricks though.  They get tossed back on his side with the quickness.  No mess on my side!  Well, unless there's a project happening, but then it's only temporary mess.

 

Isn't it just SO neat (neat as in cool, but it is neat too..did you expect any less?)!  My hunny really is good to me.  Love you, Sugar Britches!

 

Baking Center Organization

Eeek!!  This was dancing all over my OCD tendencies.  I just could not figure out a good way to keep this part of the kitchen organized.  It's my baking center, and maybe I just have too much stuff, but after sorting through it, there was nothing I could part with.  Not a durn thing.  So off to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to search for cabinet organizers.

And this is the after.  Ahhhh....  (that was a calming ahhh, not a scream.)  I cleaned out a few canisters from the pantry to give me some more storage for packets like hot chocolate, cider, gravy mixes, etc.  I purchased a set of spice "stairs" (I don't know what they are really called), so I could tier the spices and now I can see them all and reach them without it turning into a scavenger hunt.  I got all the hand mixer stuff and stand mixer attachments out of this cabinet and moved them to a cabinet off to the right, beside the fridge which is to the right of the baking center.  So it is all right beside of this.  Still within reach, but not crammed overhead.

The mixer stuff and a merry-go-round (I don't think this is the right term either) in another cabinet.  All my cookie and cake decorating stuff is in here too, on the merry-go-round, so I can get to it easily.

Much, much better!