What Once Was An Eyesore...Twice

One of my favorite things about our house is the kitchen. It's not the biggest kitchen, so of course sometimes I would love a bigger kitchen but mostly I love it just the way it is. When I find myself wanting a bigger kitchen, it's mostly due to storage space. I do a lot of cooking. I was once a girl who barely cooked but now I cooked almost every day. So I find myself needed a lot more kitchen gadgets, tools, and utensils than I ever thought I would use, but now I am actually using all these things on a regular basis. So my kitchen is tightly packed with all kinds of kitchenware and I wouldn't have it any other way. However, as much as loved having every single small appliance easy to access I quickly decided that, seeing as the kitchen is the first room you get to if you walk straight into our house, that I didn't want everything stacked up on silver metal shelves like it once was at the apartment. I wanted a nicer, maybe less functional, look.

So here's where we started. This is the exact shelf we had gotten at the apartment when we were tight on space and it worked great there. And I was even fine with it for awhile, but I quickly found myself wanting something a little nicer as the first thing you see when you walk into the house.

It was definitely functional and gave us extra storage space, but I just didn't like the way it looked. It almost made the kitchen look smaller. It took me about seven months but I finally decided what I wanted to replace it and exactly how I was going to do it without spending any money at all.

This cabinet used to sit in our living room and held all my craft/scrapbook stuff, but after Rob gave me a corner of man cave (yes I know how big and special that is!) I didn't really need it anymore, so it just got relocated and given a new purpose. The microwave sits perfectly on top with the basket holding all A's bottles. And under is all the small appliances I actually use every night or at least use more regularly. As it turns out I didn't use my waffle iron every night, so I really didn't need easy access to that particular appliance. But every thing I did need fit perfectly inside this black little cabinet. And it was definitely less of an eyesore when you first walk into the kitchen; plus as a bonus it made the kitchen feel a little bigger by shrinking down to a more manageable size.

But there was a new problem that I hadn't completely counted on when I made this change....

See those two slightly darker painted spots on the wall. The previous owner had shelves on the wall and the patch job was not exactly the greatest. So now even though I fixed one eyesore I now had another one my hands.

It took me another five months or so to figure out what I wanted down to fix that problem. But once I figured it out, it took now time to give it a very Evans-feel and make that space our own. I'm pleased by how it turned out at least.

Rob hung two floating shelves for me then it was up to me to figure out what I wanted on the shelves. I wanted something simple, something family related, something kitchen related. After just a few days of thinking I came up with the perfectly simple items for my two shelves.

The three picture frame was one that used to hang in our bedroom. Clearly it's from our wedding when we were feeding each other cake. It was Rob's favorite three pictures from our wedding, following when we were feeding each other, then clearly dropping some cake, and then finally laughing about it. Cake = food = kitchen. Totally makes sense. Plus I figure why keep this gem to ourselves, hidden in our bedroom. The 'EAT' sign I bought some cheap wooden letters from Hobby Lobby, used gorilla glue to attach them to a small piece of wood I used as a base then painted. Super easy, super cheap, super kitchen-isque project.

No room in our house would be complete without a picture of our darling, beautiful little girl. I snapped a few after we finished eating one day and got a great one of her in her high chair, holding her own spoon in her mouth with a smile on her face. The sign is something I always remember hanging in the kitchen of my grandma and grandpa's house growing up. It doesn't exactly match what I would normally choose for my house decor, but it has sentimental value and that is more important to me than having everything DIY or brand new or matching with my usual style perfectly. Maybe because it has sentimental value makes it exactly my style. Finally, the wooden box is actually a recipe box. Whenever we find a recipe we love, I copy it into our favorite books so we can easily access those meals. Just recently I created my own recipe cards for easier organizing, so I got that box in order to keep them together and I felt like it was the perfect additional to the shelves.

I don't have a final cost on this project as a whole. The black cabinet we already had and of course we are now using those metal shelves in our basement for storage. The shelves were the most expensive part since all the things I got from Hobby Lobby (A's frame, the letters, and paint) were all on sale. I also had a coupon for The Container Store where I got the recipe box (online - we don't have one around here, which is probably good but also so sad).

But just these few and cheap changes made all the difference.

I love love love the way my kitchen looks now. It was exactly what I wanted. It took me about 11 months to decide what I wanted and actually finish this project, but in my opinion it was totally worth it.

Oh and another improvement we made to the kitchen since moving in is adding a rug. It is mostly unrelated to this project other than both being in the kitchen, but I don't have another occasion to show off my rug.

Yup, it's pretty awesome. I love it. Okay, I feel better now having shared that with the blog world. This kitchen is definitely looking much better than when we moved in. I can work wonders with a room. Just wait until I take on the laundry - you'll be impressed!