Friday, April 13, 2012

Spring Cleaning Volume 1

This last weekend I finally got around to tackling a few of my spring cleaning to-do's.

#1. Cleaning the kitchen!

      Cleaning the kitchen usually means cleaning out the dishwasher and wiping down the counters. But I really wanted to scrub it down everywhere. So that's what I did.... for three hours. I scrubbed all the cabinets and shelves, including the cabinet tops which had obviously not been cleaned in 20 years. I scrubbed the backsplash and all the appliances too. I even rehung the fabric backing in our open shelves. You probably can't tell in these pictures, but its seriously sparkling clean!


I even spruced the place up with a little of our backyard bamboo.



Now I just need to get a new utensil organizer and figure out how to tame my ever-growing pile of table linens. 


#2. Fix broken tables

      We aren't particularly careful or tidy people, so its only karma that we should break things occasionally. Our glass console table and one of our plastic coffee tables broke within the last few months. 



So I attempted to fix them with a little super-powered glue. 



They aren't perfect, and I still need to clean them up from all the glue, but at least it seems to be holding! 


#3. Add a little something to our giant, gray slab

I love our living room, but looking into the kitchen has always been a bit of an eye sore. There's a giant bicycle hanging from the ceiling (which, I've actually grown to love/ignore), a large glass door with some type of mold on it so that sun light never fully comes in cleanly, and a giant gray slab that is the back of our kitchen counter. Our cabinets are a dull gray laminate that I've tried to liven up with new hardware and by removing several cabinet doors and adding striped cloth. However, there is still this giant slab of gray laminate that backs the breakfast bar that I've been dying to do something with.

I had several options in mind. My favorite, and the most expensive, idea was to use some type of 3-D wall panel to add some architectural interest to the dead space. My favorite a panel from Inhabit Living


But as this project would cost about $100 (not terrible, but not super cheap) and take more time to construct, it wasn't the first thing on my list to try. 

Other options included cork board or burlap, like this...

(Image courtesy of Elle Decor)

Or chalkboard, like this... 

(Image courtesy of Creative Compass)

I asked Bill what his favorite was and he said he was most intrigued by the chalkboard. So, that's what  we did. I bought a $30 chalkboard Wallie...


...which allows me to peel and stick and remove really easily (a renter's dream!)

I only ordered one, but here's what we came up with


Its in compare-contrast mode right now, but I just ordered another one so we should have a finished product to critique shortly. 

_______


Three down, about 10,000 more to go. Have you been accomplishing anything around the house lately?




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