Pantry Shelves and a Whole Lot of Electrical

Since Brian is busy doing this...

Definitely not as fun as it looks

Tequila and I are trying to stay out of his hair, so I thought I would update everyone on our remodel. Right now we are taking up the old flooring so that we have plenty of time to level it out before our new flooring arrives next week. The entry flooring is the worst in the house because of the large grout lines which are impossible to keep clean with a dog that molts every other week. Of course it wouldn't be fun without some surprises, so once Brian loosened up the tile we found not one, but two layers of flooring. This one is definitely my favorite...

The original flooring

Blue Giraffe tile with yellow grout...what? I bet that looked sweet with the neon blue shag they were rocking all over the house. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this, and other than the color, it's a pretty cool pattern...I think we should cancel the flooring and go with this :) Just kidding!

We have been working on several finishing projects while waiting for the floor to get in. We've touched up paint, done a ton of caulking and are working on finishing the windows. But that's nothing compared to the electrical work we've put in this week. Switching out electrical sockets would be so much easier if the previous owners hadn't tried to cut corners and wired everything wrong, but even worse, we had to go buy all new screws and wiring for all the switches and sockets because we have to attach everything through a layer of drywall and a layer of paneling. Awesome...after a couple sparks, tons of frustration and a lot of guidance from my dad we were able to get the main room all hooked up and working. We even got the new ceiling fan up in the kitchen...

Want to test the strength of your marriage? Try hanging a ceiling fan...

We still have some outlets in the kitchen that need work, but we will get to those one at a time. Notice in the picture above, we did hang a few of the cabinet doors in the kitchen...we are only going to hang the ones that aren't going to be in the way of the granite, but I like the way that they look so far. We of course could have waited until after the granite was in, but that wouldn't be any fun. 

We also decided to tackle the pantry with the hopes that we can start to move some of our kitchen stuff out of the guest room. In the old pantry, the previous owner had tried to put in pull out drawers, but the problem was, they didn't account for the trim surrounding the pantry so the drawers couldn't be pulled out. Then they weren't level and attached securely so it was a balancing act trying to store groceries and the shelves were so low that you couldn't put in most boxes or tall containers. We had so much space, we just needed a better way to use it. So, we wanted to build something that was super secure and that would allow us to store larger items if we needed to, like cereal boxes and pasta containers. Here is what we started with:

Pull out drawers would be great, but the opening isn't wide enough to utilize all the space

We ripped everything out and then painted the inside to lighten it up a bit and to match the rest of the upper cabinets. We used a slightly darker paint color than the walls which compliments and contrasts. Then we measured the height of the pantry so we could determine the area that we were working with.  I had found a post on Pinterest that gave you the space you would need between shelves depending on what you needed. We decided to do the following: 18" for large items at the bottom, 15" for cereal boxes and taller items, 10" for other boxes/bags/etc., 6.5" for canned items and 7.5-8" for miscellaneous at the top. We did the miscellaneous section at the top for breads and English muffins that we can slide underneath the top trim with no problem.

First - measure and nail in

I measured the space between the shelves that we needed, making sure to add on 5/8" to each measurement to account for the width of the shelving we were using. Then I (yes I did this while Brian was at work...surprise!) used a level and a nail gun to attach pieces of leftover 1x2" pieces to set the shelves on.

Then I had to cut out the shelves. We had to buy two large pieces of thick particle board to level off the island so that we can easily lay the granite when its ready, so we had plenty left over to use for shelving. The problem...while Brian was at work, all the power tools ran out of battery so I had to use a hand saw to cut out 3 of the shelves. This was one of the worst ideas because my arms were stiff for days...I did wait for Brian to get home to cut the last shelf because I couldn't carry the larger piece of particle board by myself...it only took him 5 minutes with the power tools, but he was impressed with what I got done while he was out.

With the shelves (finally!)

Next we added a layer of cork liner to all of the shelves to keep water from hitting the particle board. Note for those wanting to use cork liner...spend the extra money on the cork liner with adhesive already on it. We made the mistake of buying the cork without adhesive and decided to try out Gorilla Glue - worst idea ever. Since the cork was rolled we had to put heavy items on top to even it out and when we went to remove the items, the cork ripped up with it. We spent more time adding the cork than the leveling and cutting the shelves, so cork liner with adhesive is totally the way to go. Once we got all the cork in, we nailed in some trim pieces to finish off the shelves. 

Nailing in the trim

I do have to admit that I wasn't too excited with the shelves because they weren't perfectly even, but they are going to be so much more practical then they were before. The last thing we did was to paint the trim and we were done:

Yay! Steady, sturdy and functional shelves :)

The whole weekend wasn't all about working on the house...we did enjoy the beautiful weather and played around with Tequila. Here are some of our "break" pictures:

Beautiful sunset in our backyard

Our little painter with his painter's shirt on

I think the paint fumes were getting to us :)

 We have more projects in progress, but the electrical took up the majority of our week, so we will post more when we get them finished. Let's check back in to see how far Brian's gotten with the flooring...

Awesome...2 layers down, 1 more to go

Hope everyone enjoys the short holiday week!

XOXO,

Sara, Brian & Tequila