DIY Built-In Spice Rack in Unused Wall Space

Little spice racks are expensive. The last time I bought one from Amazon it held about half of what I needed and I had to drive to FedEx to pick it up for some reason.  

We have drywall over our ugly chimney (you can see I dig the brick, just not that brick) and with a few measurements, we realized we could build in a very nice spice rack!

Primer!

Today was primer day for the top cabinets.

Also, the doors came sooner than expected. Harkens back to the days with my ex!

One coat of primer

Kitchen... Loading...

Cabinets no more

Ze Bathroom.... She es fee-neshed!

I know, can you believe it? LeBron came back to Cleveland AND we finished the bathroom. Witness!

In all, we ripped up the tile floor and concrete board underlayment, then ripped up 2 layers of old linoleum under that. Took out and replaced the pedestal sink. Removed old shower tile, ripped out green board walls. cut out rotten/damaged studs. Removed old, LOUD, poorly performing exhaust fan. Removed cheap light fixture. Took down toilet paper holder and round towel rack.

Laid down 1/4" concrete board on the floor and 1/2" on the walls. Repaired studs. Tiled floor and walls. Installed floating vanity and sink with LED faucet. Built in two cubbies in the shower. Added pretty light above the mirror. Installed 2 recessed shower lights fresh. Installed built-in toilet paper holder and square hand towel rack. Installed Kohler frameless shower doors with clear glass. Installed QUIET, high performance exhaust fan.

We also swapped out a flat mirror with a GUNNERN mirror cabinet from Ikea.

Typing it out, it does not seem like much, but it was WORK! I won't go into too many deets, I am just glad it is finished, because it looks fantastic! It's clean, modern and we actually increased our space with the cubbies, the medicine cabinet, and the room under the sink.

I just today put the last coats of paint on the shelves that go in the skinny cabinet.

What I learned (aka, what I would do differently):

Score around your tile/area you are going to sledgehammer out, or better yet, saw it out... you'll thank me when you have beautiful, clean edges.

CHECK YOUR PRODUCTS. The shower doors were the second thing we purchased... and they sat for a month, unopened. We went to install and the hardware skin was missing completely! Fast forward a week, the skin shows up in the mail, we're halfway through with the install and Kohler sent us the wrong brackets! This really extended the entire project... so again, check your products!

Oh and of course, here's some photos. I have to hunt my 18-55 lens down, so I can get some nice shots of the entire bathroom.

Gunnern Mirror

Grout is 185 New Taupe

Say Trees!

Nothing much to say, enjoy my Christmas trees.

Christmas at the Cape!

We kind of got sidetracked during Halloween, and then to boot, it rained and was miserable. I ended up in tears (most of my "help" had to cancel) and it was just one thing after another. I'm thankful a couple cooler heads prevailed and at least we could sort of pull it off. If we do it again next year, we're thinking of putting it all in the garage.

Maybe.

Anyway, I was ready to be past Halloween this year. I wanted to dive into the Christmas stuff!

We don't have a whole lot, so we purchased two trees and a few lights strings this year. We're po' folk so we're going to get our Christmas on as cheaply as possible. Here's a couple of those inexpensive Christmas decor ideas that just so happen to look cheery as possible in Jen and Guy's Little Cape.

Dollar store gold ornaments in dollar store glass.

Notice the art? I'll be tutorializing these at ChristmasinOhio soon.

These are my normal throw pillows with pillowcases from Dollar Tree. Yes, $1 each!

Dollar Tree has a section of silver and gold this year. These guys look very pretty on the mantle with their ornament strings removed, don't you think?

The gold Dollar Tree reindeer.

Little Cape Guest Spot: Euclid Boo!

So I have a nifty little thing we came across tonight, but it didn't happen at the Little Cape, but rather my mom's house, Boo!

Guy and I lived at Boo for years, and we painted quite a bit of it, along with numerous other upgrades during our stay. The walls always had a weird thickness to them and the paint was cracked, and I mean cracked... like crazy... all over.

It went through a few looks while we lived there, here's a very brief visual history of Ninny's dining room:

Boo's Dining Room in white - move in day

In purple, with light purple trim and builtin. Ack.

Dining room in stripes Gingerbread removed from built-in

I loved the stripes, but they ended up being painted over with an incredibly neutral light tan. Long story. We also pried the gingerbread trim off, as you can see.

Guy's parents are giving my mom a set of beautiful corner cabinets, so naturally my mom wanted the very builders-grade, old built in to go. As we started to pry the wood from the walls tonight, we found something that surprised me - paint underneath! I thought the built-in was original to the house... guess not!

We pulled more out, and it was when we removed the middle shelf that I saw a strip of wallpaper.

So of course, we slowly tear off some paint that gives easily, and next thing you know, we can make out that under the numerous but expected layers of paint, there are THREE layers of wallpaper!

What happens next? We stripped the entire room! My husband, me, my brother, his girlfriend, we're in there stripping... err, well you know.

This wallpaper is definitely from the 1940's. I didn't get any good photos of the one layer of paper under IT, which I'd peg as original to the dining room. House was built in 1941. Neat!!

Just peeling paint with our fingers!

Totes cray, right?!?

The insanity goes on, remember how I said the walls up and down were cracking, splitting, and sagging? Turns out the once upon a timers wallpapered EVERYTHING (even DOORWAYS that don't have wood trim)! So we're going to strip everything off (with just our hands, it literally peels off) and go to town!

Do I sound excited? I kinda am. Why?

House history = porn for me and,
The walls have looked bad for years and we never knew why.

I'm kind of surprised the freaking paint stayed up this long. Maybe one more coat would have been the back-breaking straw, ya think?

Pictures Part II

I snapped these pictures with my so-so phone camera the first time we saw the house, the same day we made our offer.

Bathtub with a free spider

Hideous "wood" linoleum in the kitchen

The cabinets - with porcelain FLOWER knobs... bad

Living room with doorbell chime nook, missing NuTone?

Everyone loves the dark blue tile, I'm on the fence

Bought!

On December 6th, 2012, Guy and I bought our first home together... A 1942 Cape Cod!

The name, like the title closing, is still pending. I'd like to give it something stately and ridiculous. What do you name a new (old) little cape cod?