Under-A-Table Pull-Out Trash Cabinet
With limited kitchen cabinet space and nowhere to conceal the trash and recycling cans, we got creative and made a pull-out trash cabinet to go under a table. Yes, a table! We have a partially unfitted kitchen, meaning not everything is fixed in place. We use furniture to supplement our lack of kitchen cabinets and counter space. In particular, we have a rustic table pushed against one wall that serves as a counter, coffee station, and eating area. That’s where we decided to tuck our pull-out trash cabinet. Here’s that rustic table before we started this project. And, ahem, here’s how that table has looked on any given weekday with…
Copper Toe Kick For Built-In Desks
Allow me to acquaint you with the most amazing thing – a copper toe kick with an adhesive backing. If copper isn’t your color, don’t write this idea off. Brass and nickel toe kicks are a thing too. Sure, toe kicks or kick plates are not a new invention. They’ve been around since women started complaining about people and pets damaging their gorgeous front doors or so I assume. Seems like something that would drive me nuts. However, we’re not getting distracted by assumptive history today. We’re focusing on what drives me nuts creative problem-solving with gorgeous materials. I most often see a toe kick or kick plate on the…
DIY Mission-Style Table Legs from 4x4s
We recently upgraded the legs on our kitchen table with DIY Mission-style table legs that we made from 4×4 posts of all things. It’s amazing what you can do with a humble 4×4. Here’s how our table started. It’s a rustic farmhouse table that we built ten years ago. The rustic part occurred naturally because it was our outdoor dining table for a few years. The legs were made from basic 2x4s. They were perfectly fine and sturdy enough that you could dance on that table. I assume. However, the table legs lacked pizazz. Plus, I’d thought for years that they were a little small in relation to the rest…
Reclaimed Copper Tile Tray
I have a DIY reclaimed copper tile tray to share with you today that has the coolest backstory. First, did you know copper tiles were a thing? Actual metal tiles. I did not until I found them hidden under some drywall in our kitchen! We could see a sliver of them and their glorious copper sheen when we replaced some trim. For many reasons, we did not demo the wall to see how many copper tiles were hiding back there or what condition they were in. Yes, this was disappointing in the short term, but now I know there’s something to look forward to – besides the extra work –…
What We Found In Our Kitchen Wall – Copper Tiles
While repairing the trim in our kitchen we found 4-inch copper tiles behind the drywall. Surprise, surprise. It’s not exactly the hidden treasure I’ve been looking for in this old house of ours. I was thinking more along the lines of a stash of gold coins or Prohibition-era liquor, but copper tiles are pretty cool. The internet is curiously vague on the subject of metal wall tiles. There is plenty of information about metal ceiling tiles or tin ceilings as they were called. Fun fact, they weren’t made from tin for very long, but the name stuck. They were made from sheet metal. Tin ceilings gained popularity in the United…
7 Heart Crafts To Make Out of Wood That Aren’t Cheesy
We are rapidly approaching February, the month of love. But why wait? You can start spreading love around now with these 7 heart crafts made out of wood. These heart crafts will give you all the mushy feelings, but these are not cheesy crafts for kids. They are fun, festive, and a few might even be a bit refined. I think you’ll love them. Here we go… Heart Planters Instead of gifting over-priced cut flowers that will die in a week, gift a plant in a heart-shaped planter that should last longer than a week…as long as someone remembers to water it. I created a free template to use for…
Building In Our Fridge: The Reveal
It’s reveal day! We’ve been working on building in our fridge and customizing it to make it look panel-ready(ish) and now I get to show you how it looks. It does make me a little insecure to release these photos into the wild because I know this is just one step in a multi-step process of making over our kitchen. There is still more to come as time and budgets allow. I hope you enjoy seeing a transformation over time because that’s what happening here. Here’s the original before photo of the refrigerator. Try to contain your jealousy. Fast forward a few years and we removed some wallpaper, painted, and…
Building In Our Fridge: Four Ways To Customize A Fridge
I’m back with the second installment of building in our fridge. Part 1 was all about the prep work that needed to be done for this project to fix the trim and ready the wall. Now we can get to the building of the actual cabinet and the four ways to customize a fridge that catapulted this project to the next level. There are a million tutorials of how to build a surround or cabinet for your refrigerator. Most of them claim to be “easy.” They may very well be. But that’s not how we do things. Below is the refrigerator that’s getting a glow up as seen in all…
Building In Our Fridge: The Prep Work Is What Gets You
When we purchased our home, it came with a perfectly functional older refrigerator in an off-white color. I’m so glad we didn’t replace it because now we have the opportunity to hone our DIY skills while in building in our fridge. Adding a cabinet around a refrigerator so that it looks built-in is not a novel concept. It’s been done millions of times, so this should not require a multipart blog series. But have you met our house? It is the “hold my beer” of houses whenever we want to do something simple and basic like building in our fridge. This house gives us a run for our money and…
Make A Magnetic Bulletin Board With Sheet Metal
I prefer to test out our DIY creations before I share them on the blog and the magnetic bulletin board we made with sheet metal is no exception. It is the second bulletin board we made for our Carriage House Gym and we have put this magnetic bulletin board through its paces to see how it will hold up. If it can survive being hung in a well-used gym with no heating or cooling and some moisture issues (humidity, not sweat – but a little of that too), it can survive your house or business. Why did we make magnetic bulletin board instead of a cork board? First, they are…
