a place to sit

Rob once again brought one of my visions to life! It was a little different working on a project with a six month old around the house so most of the construction and work fell on Rob who did a great job! 

In our small house we have to be creative when it comes to our use of space! Our kitchen is one of the places we were a little uncomfortable in because there was no space to sit while we were in there together, feeding the babe or making dinner. We also don't have a lot of storage in our small kitchen and there are some items that we have to bring up from the basement every time we want to use them (read: crockpot, griddle, dutch oven)

Out of this, came the idea to add an eat in area to the kitchen. A bench was the original idea and after looking through lots of ideas we decided to put forth a little extra effort and make it into a storage area - imagine how thrilled Rob was that my plan kept getting more and more grand haha! 

I'll post the "step by step" below but will not include measurements because each space is different anyway! If anyone would like more details - please contact us!

Materials:
- 2 sheets of plywood
- 6, 8ft 2x4's
- 1, 1x4 (poplar)
- 2 Piano Hinges
- tack nails
- wood screws
- wood glue
- stain
- polycrylic

We removed the existing moulding where the bench would be installed so it would be flush against the wall. 

Using 2x4's that were measured and cut appropriately, Rob laid the base of the bench - we laid a base instead of trimming in the sides in order to end up with the most storage space we could get. 

Once the base was laid, Rob cut one of the sheets of plywood down and installed it as the floor of the storage compartment. 

Next, Rob built in the vertical and horizontal supports on the back walls. There wasn't a great need to measure the distance between vertical supports because the project wasn't very large - we would recommend every 18-24 inches if the project is larger. 

Rob then screwed in the plywood "fronts" of the bench so the final supports would have something to be secured to.

In this picture you can see where Rob installed the cross supports behind the front walls of the bench, again this was a decision we made based on the size of the project. We decided that adding wood in the corner to make a square would create the best support for that space since the lid would not be lifting there. 

The smaller pieces of wood (the poplar that we had ripped) was cut to be the part of the lid that goes against the wall. We needed to add something that the hinges could connect to.

Once everything was cut to fit, I stained the lids and poplar back boards. I decided three coats was the magic number and gave me the color I wanted. I let it dry for 24 hours before we installed. 

Before installing the lids (while the stain was drying) I painted the fronts with white, kitchen grade paint and stained the tops of the frame with the same color as the lids so that the seams would be less visible. 

We started the the process of laying down the lid by glueing and then tacking in those poplar boards along the walls. Then we installed the corner square of the lid (again with glue and tack nails). It was all easy peasy and fitting nicely. 

Then came time for the hinged tops to be installed. Let me tell you, PIANO HINGES ARE THE WORST. We centered and screwed them into the lifting lids first because we wouldn't have been able to get to them otherwise. Can you imagine how exciting it was to hold a large wooden lid level and have someone else try to screw it in at the same time? It was thrilling. We just had to get one screw in on each end and then Rob could handle the rest - never have two screws been more difficult! 

Overall it was a pretty simple project and we are so proud of the result! Rob did an awesome job and it looks better than I could have imagined! We still need to install the finishes on the face but I'm not sure what I want it to look like so we will leave that unfinished for a while. 

It's been so nice to have baby boy's big high chair stand out of the way. Now that we are able to put that actually seat right on the bench, we save lots of space in the kitchen! 

basement brainstorming

Hello everyone, it's snowing again here in southeast Michigan but we are doing our best to stay warm, we hope you all are doing the same! 

We are almost done with our bathroom (phase 1) and will be showing you that near the end of this week - we ended up running into a few time-consuming road blocks but we are well on our way now and we have had smooth sailing since we put our problem solving brains together. Let's clap our hands for team work! 

Now that the main areas of our house are feeling more and more settled we are starting to let our minds stray to the basement area, the lovely lovely basement. We have already done some basic organization (you can read about that here) and made some adjustments to the unfinished part of the basement (you can read about that here) but there is much to be accomplished before we would actually deem the "finished" section, finished. 

The first thing we would love to add in is a built in for the dogs and all of their stuff, including their food and bowls. It would make us so happy to have a place for everything, making our dog related clutter minimal!

Currently we have all the girl's meds (heartworm and flee) and other odd items in that plastic set of drawers with the plastic air tight food bin on top and their food bowls also live downstairs. I don't like that they have things spread throughout the house - they have a basket (or two) in our cubical storage unit in the den with toys and other odd things, they have bath stuff in the bathroom, and toys are all over the house. We need a space to keep it all while still being able to get to everything easily. 

The space is being used effectively but it's just plain ugly and as you can see from the reflection in the mirror, it's right across from the stairs. The stairs lead directly downstairs once you walk in the side door and this area is visible from the landing. Currently, it's an eyesore. 

Sidenote: the mirror was left behind by the previous tenant / owner. It was not a decorating choice on our part! 

      

After looking at lots of ideas like the ones above and merging some of those concepts together we have come up with a plan of attack. Now due to my lack of photoshop skills you will have to use your imagination to see what we see in our minds. 

The bottom drawer will be a pull out that holds the food bowls at a height they can easily eat from - which will be nice once they are a little older so they won't have to bend their necks! The big plus is that we will be able to hide their bowls for the majority of the day - they aren't grazing dogs, we just feed them twice a day so they don't need to get to their bowls all day long. 

The next area, moving up, that has one handle will be a tilt out food bin so we can hide that as well! 

On the shelves above we will add baskets and items to hold their toys, leashes, medicine, etc and we will be able to keep everything in one place! 

We are so excited to build this but we are going to wait until we decided what the flooring is going to become. We will definitely not be keeping this terrible diamond, hard as a rock carpet for the long haul so we want to get the built in adjusted for the new flooring. We are thinking cork flooring or a deeper plush carpet - we are hesitant to add carpet because there is a tendency for water (if it floods or overflows) to seep into the finished section. 

We just wanted to share this idea, get some ideas from you and start planning. We don't think this will be an expensive build but it will add great appeal to this area of our home. 

What do you think? Any suggestions for style or utilizing more storage capacity!? Let us know your thoughts, we would love to know!