Kitchen Update

The kitchen projects are coming along slower than I would have liked, even though no major work is being done LOL.  My dad came over and helped us fix our dishwasher a couple weeks ago, so I'm glad that is done.  However, in order to pull the dishwasher out from the cupboards, we had to remove trim that was in front of the dishwasher (the people we bought the house from installed the trim in front of the dishwasher for some reason).  So now that is one more project we need to take care of.

One of the things I've wanted to do is figure out some additional storage.  We have a small kitchen, so storage is key.  A couple weekends ago we went to Lowe's and picked up some shelves that we ended up putting in the basement.  I'm able to store all of my big appliances that I don't use all the time--crock pots, waffle maker, juicer, food processor, etc.  I also have a shelf I plan to use as an extra little pantry area.  I love having all of these big items out of the kitchen (and we even had some things in the front closet).  It gave me a little more space in our kitchen cabinets.

I decided to keep our Kitchen Aid mixer on the counter, because I use it quite a bit, and it's pretty heavy to be carting up and down the stairs all the time.  But now I need to decide what to do with our knives.  There just isn't a spot for the knife block any more.  I was thinking I could just put the knives in the silverware drawer, or I thought about getting a magnetic knife strip.  Thoughts/suggestions?

This past weekend I cleaned all of the trim/baseboards in the kitchen (and hallway).  The difference is amazing.  I'm almost embarrassed to show you the before pictures, but hey, I'm keeping it real.  These pictures are taken in a high traffic area of our kitchen.  It's where we enter the house from the breezeway, so it gets a lot of foot traffic.  We also used to watch my mother-in-laws two dogs three days a week for several months, and when you have that many dirty paws running to the door to greet you, it can make a mess quickly.

To clean them, I just mixed Mr. Clean All Purpose Cleaner and water and used a scrub sponge.  Then I used a clean towel/rag to dry it up right after.  I even used a toothbrush to get in the tiny areas.

The trim looks a million times better just being cleaned, but when I look at it close up, I can tell that there are areas that need to be sanded, wood filler used, repainted, and caulked.  I know this might be tedious and not seem necessary, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

Needs some repainting and major caulking.

may need some repainting...and caulking.

Those are just some of the small things I've been slowly working on.  We're going to Chicago this weekend, but hopefully no plans for the next few weekends means more progress in the kitchen!