Pantry Reno Part 2

It was time to get the door ready. I bought the door from craigslist for $10. It was pretty dirty from being in someone's shed or something. I cleaned it well, scraped off any loose paint and put on 2 coats of Polycrylic to keep the paint from peeling anymore lest one of my rugrats decides to eat paint chips.

 Hanging the door was definitely a 2 person job. A third person would have been helpful too. The hardware was heavy and so was the door. By the way, the panes are glass but have some sort of textured coating that obscures the glass. Looking from a side angle, you can't see in really at all. The hardware is from Grainger and was less than $150 for the track and hangers. Much better than the $400 stuff.

 Front view:

 Sliding open:

 Here is a comparison with the old door jamb. I gained like 7 or 8 inches in the opening. Don't miss the cutest helper on the planet.

 

 Here is another view...from standing on the counter. Because everyone does that when they come over.

 People kept asking how I would keep the door next to the wall and not swinging out. And believe you me, the kids were pulling it out like crazy until I put this little do-hickey on. I found it with all the decking/framing connectors at the hardware store. I had to bend part of it up to suit my needs. Think outside the box people.

 I built a cabinet to house the drawers.

 And built this big, heavy pullout. Building it was the easy part. Getting all the drawer slides to work together took days.

 Here I was testing fit:

 How it looks when it is pulled out.

 After I painted it and put a handle on the pullout.

 Front view:

 Drawers pulled out all the way:

 Requisite pinterest photo with drawers all pulled out at staggered intervals. I lined the drawers with some shelfliner from Walmart. I looked and looked for alternatives but finally just settled with the grasscloth-lookin' stuff. It's wipeable which was the first priority.

 Somewhat loaded up. I have so much more room to use! The pantry is the same size but has a lot more access and better use of space so I can fit more in it. BAM!

 If you look strait on the door, you can see somewhat inside. Vaguely.

 But, again, from the side, you can't see what's in there hardly at all.

 Almost forgot. Since the door doesn't "latch" I put a lock on the top. You know, to keep the rugrats out when I don't want them gettin' in to things. The block acts as a stop for the door as well. If I had made the stop deeper then the lock could have sat better, but this works.

 I had it done just in time for Thanksgiving and I can say it passed with flying colors. I had 25 people at my house, including my own hubs and kids and it stood the test. I love it. It is all I imagined.

Pantry Reno PART ONE

 I have been planning a pantry project for a while. When the hinges of the door finally gave up the ghost, I decided it was a sign to get going. First order of business was to expand the doorway a bit.

Before:

 Removed trim

 Took out door jamb

 Cut back drywall

 Made some exploration holes to figure out how to proceed

 Cut out what I could

 Trimmed the drwall from inside the closet

 Made a new header same as the previous one, just a bit longer. Oh, and empty the pantry finally. After I got dust all over everything first. Sometimes I just dive in and can't be bothered with the details.

 Patch drwall

 Cut back the studs from the floor

  And filled in with pieces of plywood...

 And extra flooring pieces to bring the height back up. I tried to replace the whole pieces of flooring (tongue and groove laminate) but it was not working. Plan B is to replace the WHOLE kitchen floor with tile. But that isn't happening right now for a variety of reasons. So plan c...

 ....make a threshold to cover the holes. It is a thin piece of wood painted the trim color. Glued and nailed down.

 Here are the pullouts I am going to use. Drawers I found at the ReStore for $1 each.

 Removed the contact paper, dusted, cleaned, primed them

 And then painted with a few coats of top coat---trim color. I am going to replace the contact paper with something else. The drawer bottoms are still tacky from the old contact paper and wouldn't paint well. Perhaps I will modpodge some pretty paper in or something. I don't know yet. Something wipeable.

 Finished drwall repairs, and painted walls.

 Trimmed the front

 To be continued.....

Master Bath, Start to Finish

Here is the master bath when we looked at the house (Dec 2007) Note that it is daytime and the bathroom is dark as night! It was a dark red/brown color. Terrible, dysfunctional medicine cabinets, hollywood light fixture, orange oakish cabinetry...

 We painted (Gobi Desert by Behr) and replaced the medicine cabinets first. I also moved the hand towel ring to between the mirrors instead of on the far right on your way out of the bathroom.

 Cabinets before: Oak, brass hardware, laminate countertops...

 Put granite in. (Feb 2011)

 Changed the laminate cabinet side to beadboard and replaced the tp holder. Then painted the cabinets and replaced all the hardware with brushed nickel.

 Before backsplash tile:

Added backsplash. May 2011 By the way, that tile was called "beige". Yeah, right.

Replaced light fixture. (Mar 2012)

Replaced vinyl flooring with tile. (May 2012) Tile is Mesa Beige from Lowe's.

 

Again, the before:

And the after! We are going to sell this house within a couple years so I tried to stay neutral to appeal to more people in general. If we were going to stay here forever, I might have made different choices but overall I am happy. It is obviously a huge improvement.