Dish Storage/Open Shelving

Good Afternoon!

We have dish storage.

I told you about our sad builder basic kitchen cabinet that was beginning to fall apart. 

It is hard to believe that ginormous thing was able to hang there but it's gone now. 

I kept the doors and hopefully we can repurpose them. 

I patched the texture on the wall with a combination of mud, paint and sand. This is what we used in '98 but back then, it came premixed.  

It creates a stucco look that has had amazing longevity. 

The wall needed to be touched up. 
Sadly, there was no original wallpaper back there. 
It would have been very time capsule-ish.  
This color is Kilim Beige by Sherwin Williams. It's the very pretty, buttery color my sister-in-law used it at their lake house. 
After pinning a ton of ideas,I headed up to Home Depot to get brackets and boards. 
I chose the same brackets used on this blog.

These brackets were a bear to hang.

They were very difficult to get level. Even creating a template of the back of the bracket didn't prove successful. I was very frustrated and tired by the time they were up I felt like a bear. 

I was exhausted and only did two shelves. 
You know when you work hard on something and then you're underwhelmed?

Well, that's what happened. Bill seemed underwhelmed too. 

He thought the bottom shelf was okay but the top shelf was a waste because it was staged with decorative stuff instead of dishes we need.
"What do we need that cow up there for?"
Um please?

"There have to be a few decorative things up there or it will look bad." 
FYI: Cow pitchers annoy spouses almost as much as pillows. 

These shelves were securely on the wall but it just didn't feel like it. 

So the peace of mind I expected with them didn't come. Dishes smashed all over the floor kept flashing around my brain. 
Dog gone it, Google!
The next morning after coffee, I got to work on the third shelf.

Notice the little cow pitcher got moved to the top shelf. 

A near disaster with a vent pipe from the sink was averted. 

Thank heavens the plumber was here installing a toilet. 

 Now it's in balance with the other cabinets and the vent hood. The decorative stuff we never use can go up on the third shelf.

These seemed a little insecure and bland so they got tweaked again yesterday morning. 

I added a board under each shelf to brace the units. 

Now they feel secure. 

The brace is drilled into the studs and the shelf is drilled down into the brace. 

The boards were reclaimed from another project that I did 20 years ago. I like the contrast of the natural boards and the white. 

But as I said on instagram, "It's fun for now because I'm too tired to paint."

About the time it was finished, Bill sent this text.
"Hope you're done "wreaking-renovating" our house and taking it easy!
I was.
This project was not on the agenda for this summer. 
I was missing the cabinet but this is cute and will be fun to style for the holidays.

Talk to you soon,
Katie  
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Kitchen Shelves Instead Of Our Big Cabinet

The night before we were supposed to leave town for 4th of July, I noticed that it looked like more of my cabinet was pulling away from the kitchen wall.

4th of July was wonderful by the way. 
The food was delicious! 
We had family float time. Several of us siblings and spouses just floated in the lake, talking.  It was heavenly once a few got over their fear of snakes. ;) So much fun!

I wish someone had gotten a picture of us on our floaties but alas not one picture.
 Maybe they don't trust me not to publish it on my blog. Haha.

 Anyway.

It was about six months ago that I first noticed the trim on the side of the cabinet was no longer snug against the wall. 

Several more screws drilled into the studs took care of the problem or so I thought. 

Nope. The problem wasn't with the screws going through the back into the wall studs. The problem was with the side of the cabinet splitting away from the back of the cabinet. 

You could see light coming through the cabinet between the side and the back. Eeek!

I drilled an angle bracket into the side and back to keep it secure while we were out of town. 

I was tempted to google "cabinets falling off of the wall" but images of china, glass and splintered cabinet all over the floor came to mind. 

Can you imagine?

I wouldn't have been able to sleep all weekend.

Pondering it while we were gone drew me to several conclusions. 

We could add corbels under the cabinet to give it more support and therefore stop the slow splitting but 
Mrs. Paranoid would check it obsessively.

We could rip it down, rebuild the box and put it back up.

We could get a new cabinet and paint it to match. 
The new cabinet could be a more modern height.
Finally, we could install open shelving. 

I kept coming back to the open shelving idea. 

Bill trusts our ability to keep it neat and organized after all my cabinet and pantry organization projects this past year. 

He doesn't trust me to not have 15 different types of china on the shelves. 

I promised to purge and to fill it with matching, white  china.

I'm getting all tingly at the idea of stacks of plates, bowls, platters etc. 

Yesterday I pinned, purged and took down the cabinet.

I unscrewed all the screws except the final screw. I lowered one end onto a stool and once the last screw was out I lowered the other end on to another stool. I got it down off of the counter by resting one end on the step ladder and then I lifted it down. 

The wall will need to be repaired behind the cabinet and then painted.

Hmmm. I kind of like how open it is.

This is the texture mixture.

All the sponge painting I did back in 1987 came in handy.
I used a paper towel and then a sponge to dab it on. 

I didn't rest until that beast was off of the wall.

This cabinet was 48 inches wide and had to weigh several hundred pounds. 
No wonder.
I'll keep you posted but right now I'm going to excuse myself and grieve the loss of my pretty white cabinet.

Katie   

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