The Kitchen Nook....aka Book Nook

Before - Peachy/Sandy Walls - no shelves

After - Smooth/Capucchino Walls - Shelves Galore

I alluded to a kitchen "refresh" in my previous blog about my girlies' room. The kitchen project was the kick-start to a few updates around here. It was by no means a renovation - in the sense that we didn't rip out tile, flooring, cabinets or appliances to replace them with anything new. BUT, the update gave the room a fresh, new feel.

The latest version of our kitchen included a wall paint that was both glossy AND sandy - I know, I know, this sounds bizarre.....it was a well intentioned attempt at hiding some imperfections in our plaster walls. It was a couple of husbands (mine and a longtime friend) who brainstormed the issue at Home Depot and came home with my selected paint color already mixed with sand. It didn't LOOK horrible up on the wall, but it was SOOOO hard to clean. Anytime something spilled on the wall, I would end with my towel or sponge shredded to pieces. It was a wall that would snag tights and stockings and in general just started to become my enemy.

Most of our outstanding major projects were put on hold the last two years as we've coped with a new member of the family, who has come with many special needs that we're addressing. Also, my handy-man husband was working on a Masters Degree - so I didn't bug him about the gritty paint.....well not too much.

My girlie in Play Kitchen days

One of the things in our kitchen was a built in bookshelf. When Ballerina was about 2 or 3 years old she got a play kitchen for Christmas. I removed the bottom three shelves in the bookshelf and slid her kitchen into the space. Songbird happily took it over when she started to walk, and it got a lot of use over the years. We were finally nearing the end of its life in our home, and I was formulating a plan for the space. In addition to aprons, the play kitchen had become a catchall for lunchboxes and tote bags, and I would often find lunch thermoses hanging out with the toy whisks and plastic fruit.

My first job was finding a new home for the play kitchen and toy food. We kept some of the mixing bowls, the tea set and play cakes - there are still play tea parties and some pretend cooking going on - just not in the kitchen. I cleaned up the little wooden kitchen and searched every nook and cranny of the apartment for any cardboard/plastic groceries. I rounded up all the Melissa & Doug OT-friendly wooden foods. These wooden toys were attached with velcro and came with smooth wooden "knives" that were perfect for my little Songbird to practice her fine motor skills. An adoptive mom I'd met through another adoptive mom was bringing home, from China, a daughter who had Albinism, like my Songbird. She had just purchased a kitchen set for her young children and was happy to have the wooden toys that would help her daughter, who had similar needs to my girlie. The toy kitchen and rest of the toys were dropped off at the local "Take It or Leave It" shed.  I barely set the toys down at the shed when a woman whisked most of them up into her car - it looked like a grandma, happy to find a new treasure for her grandchildren.  I was glad it could continue to be used.  Before I knew it - the kitchen was already starting to look different....I pushed ahead.

Built-In Shelves in transition

Because the space had started to catch the afterschool items,and the kids backpacks lined up under their coat rack in the hallway started to intrude into the easy flow from front door to rest of the apartment - I concluded that I needed to use the space that was vacated by the play kitchen for a school/activity cubby. I started to browse through magazines and on Pinterest for some ideas. I found lots of beautiful, sleek built-ins, but I realized that some railings and hooks would work out just fine - the shelf space is narrow, and I don't want to block the flow anymore. The play kitchen jutted out a few inches and I figured I was done with that!

So, as I started sketching out a plan and browsing the Ikea catalog, I started to look at all the pins I'd pinned on pinterest that involved shelving. I really needed more shelves in our little kitchen. We have a tiny galley that has some cabinets along with ALL the appliances. The nook off the tiny galley kitchen is larger and included the built-in shelves, the Container Store Elfa shelves and a pantry closet. I had a great buffet that holds my good china and tablecloths. The wall above the buffet had artwork on it and I was ready to make it work harder.

Nook Dismantled

I started to gather my ideas and make some drawings. I shared them with my handy-man, now GRADUATED, husband. He was receptive to the change, noting that the items I'd planned to sit on the additional shelves were spilling out of the pantry too many times. Okay, so now that he was happy with the plan, I revealed one of the important elements for the whole shelves/ hooks and rails plan.......I needed the walls rid of their sandy finish. If we're going to freshen it up, we should prep the walls properly and, I reasoned, the paint should be the first to go - it had been long enough. With some resignation as to the exhaustive sanding involved, he agreed and we set off to the home depot to gather tools and paint samples.

In the weeks coming I started stalking the Ikea website for information on the shelving that I'd decided would be the exact right fit for our space. There were two pieces from the same collection that I wanted. One was as high as the other was wide and I measured the space to find that the configuration I had in mind would work perfectly. When I was at Ikea to pick up the shelves along with some railings for the "cubby" area, I discovered the shelves were not in stock. I was disappointed as the closest Ikea is about 40 minutes away, and it wasn't a quick trip to just check on stock. At the same time I discovered that the timing was not the greatest to get exactly what I needed.  The Swedish superstore was launching a new catalog within a month and would be unveiling new items and moving stock around for a bit, while renovating some showroom spaces. I started to panic - maybe they wouldn't restock MY shelves!

I went to the store's website and found that not only were the shelves out of stock, but all the other (somewhat) nearby Ikeas did NOT have my shelves in stock either! As a matter of fact, I couldn't even order them online - the situation was not looking good. When I realized that not even the Portland, OR store had these items in stock, my heart sunk. I gave myself a few weeks to figure out a new plan....which included a limited budget.  During my few weeks of figuring, I kept checking out Ikea - I was able to find one of the shelf sets online for order - it was the long shelf, which worked out just fine. If I could only have one of the two - the long shelf was the most useful - it came with two long shelves and a built-in railing with hooks for teacups or hand towels. I ordered it and crossed my fingers I could find something else to replace the tall shelves.

I returned to Ikea again for the picture ledges for my girlies' room and was a wee bit hopeful that I'd find the tall shelf.  On the website it was vague, but not negative, about the stock. I inquired about it the minute we walked into the store. The sales associate I spoke with said there was just ONE left in the store.  If I wanted it, I'd have to go to furniture pickup now. I fairly ran down to claim that shelf. Thankfully the girls begged to go to the kiddie-playland and without them I was able to quickly dodge the meandering shoppers who were pondering dining tables and carpeting. I felt like I'd somehow gotten away with something as I packed the shelf into my car! With my treasure safely packed into the car, I took my time picking out the rest of the items on my list. After I retrieved the girls and took them to lunch - free for kids on Tuesdays- and we headed down to the registers for my second time that day.

Before I got to the register, I detoured into the "As-Is" department. There I found two small wheeled cabinets that were floor models. I suddenly realized they would fit in the area under my Container Store shelves. I was considering trading my bottom "desk" shelf in for a column of narrow shelves. These two discounted cabinets would cost less than the new shelves and brackets. I tried to send a picture to my handy-man guy to see what he thought, but the reception was poor and the picture didn't go through. He said he trusted me, go ahead and get the non-returnable cabinets. Part of me was looking for a "WOW, you found those PERFECT cabinets for next to NOTHING? COOOOLLL!" - But maybe that was just asking for too much. I grabbed a bigger cart and loaded the cabinets up. My shopping was done and SUCCESSFUL!
 


The "desk" shelf fits perfectly over the cabinets

The pieces were ready - now I needed to dismantle the kichen "nook". On a day that the girls had no summer programs, I started taking all the books off the shelves - I have a small collection of cookbooks and a whole bunch of other books on the shelves in my kitchen - it is a small library. Ballerina took charge and started stacking the books in the hallway after I took the down. Songbird mostly rearranged the stacks her big sister put together and JuneBug shuttled around the wall art and tabletop items that needed to be moved.  They're so helpful my girls!

The next step was the wall sanding. Dave saved this project for a day I would be out with the girls. He had many setbacks with the sander - weak sandpaper that couldn't take the heavy duty project - but after many trips to all the hardware stores within walking distance (because I took our only car!) he replaced the poor sandpaper with good sandpaper and over two days got the walls down to a nice smooth consistency. I was LOVING it!

After living with light tan stripes for a few days - we settled on a sandy/tan Pebbled Courtyard color that was more like a cappuchino color. The color went on beautifully. The shelves were put up on another day out with the girls and it changed the whole look of the room. I immediately put books, baskets and mixing bowls in place. One picture ledge was added right above the buffet and I put some cookbooks on display. I slid the cabinets under the shelving unit and they look as if they were built to fit! The rails and hooks went up and the girls promptly installed their bookbags and lunch boxes.




Nancy Drew Books within reach of Girlies

The MUCH neater after-school drop!

It was all fitting into place and looked even better than I imagined. Its helping the girls keep their homework, bookbags, dance bag, sunscreen and hats organized. There is definitely less "Songbird, WHERE is your LUNCHBOX?" and "Ballerina....look behind all the jackets, its gotta be there somewhere!" I like walking into my kitchen and seeing a new room. When we put artwork back on the walls, we removed some old stuff and after shopping my apartment, I moved a bunch of handpainted Italian plates into that room. I took the old picture in the frame and turned it around. On the back taped a piece of art paper that I picked up for less the cost of a poster. The paper features vintage postcards of Italian cities.




My "Chef's Hat" or "Cupcake Wrapper" light

Just today my handy-man husband turned his attention to the light fixure in the nook. I had picked up a new fixture at.....any guess? Ikea. Yeah, the name of this post should read - "Kitchen by Ikea". Anyway, I was on a roll while I was there, and light fixtures aren't the least expensive thing to spruce up a kitchen, and Ikea's prices were right. I picked up two fixtures - one for the galley, one for the nook. The one for the nook grabbed my attention because it looked like a chef's hat. When I showed my mom, she said it looked like a cupcake wrapper - even BETTER! So, handy-husband worked his magic and after some additional trips to the tool box, lots of shaking the head and great effort, we now have a brand new fixture - probably the second ever fixture in that room since the building was erected.

It feels good to have some more organization and the shelving squared away. We still have some touch-ups to finish, shelves to paint, and one light fixture in the galley that needs replacing before it is all DONE - but it is so changed already, I'm sharing!

Hidden away are thermoses, Keurig pods, baking pans, mason jars....