As most people know, I like old things. Not too long ago, the wife’s mother passed down her old electric waffle iron that she got from her grandmother (the wife’s great-grandmother). It’s a Manning-Bowman model from 1941, which means it was manufactured just before all US industry shifted to the war effort following the attack on Pearl Harbor. We recently cleaned it and let it heat outside for about an hour to burn off all the old grease. This past weekend, we finally decided to try it out.
I ended my last kitchen remodel update by saying, “we still have some little things to do in the room (build an island on wheels to rest beneath the matching pot rack, add shelves to the rear of the washer/dryer cabinet door to hold various sundries, and put a flat screen TV above the fridge), but that’s all cosmetic work.” Well, now the cosmetic work is done:
I gave myself the arbitrary deadline of before football season to finish the work. It seems I barely beat the bell, considering that the college football season kicks off tonight.
I wanted to make a rolling island to match the pot rack I hung on the kitchen wall last month. Last weekend, I finally got up the courage (and the cash) to give it another try. This was the design:
This might look like an easy build, but the finish work and attention to detail made it quite difficult.
As any avid cook knows, there’s no good place to store your herbs and spices. It seems like we’re limited to fumbling through a lazy susan or wasting good cabinet space on bottles that are only three inches high. I’ve always kept my spices on a shelf above the stove, but steam makes some of them clump. After we remodeled our kitchen, we tried to come up with a better way to organize and store our essential flavorings. Since this is where we do the cooking, we thought this should be where we keep the herbs and spices:
As you know from the last update, we encountered some unexpected grief from the kitchen sink. Once we got all of that sorted out, my wife and I were able to turn our focus back to finishing the room. We’ve been very busy with work and family lately, so we haven’t had more than a day or two where we could devote our attention to the house. I managed to get a little carpentry done after work, including building these 18″ deep shelves for the pantry:
The pantry space is over three feet deep. We figured there was no reason to install such deep shelves, as we wouldn’t be able to reach anything in the back. And we couldn’t treat it like a walk-in pantry with shallow shelves, because the space is only two feet wide. My wife balked at the idea of putting in a false backing, since we’d essentially be throwing away good storage space in an otherwise small room. She recommended that we put shelves in the back for things we seldom use (specialty appliances and seasonal china), and build a movable pantry to maximize the volume of the space. This solution is actually closer to her original design, except that the pantry moves on wheels instead of on expensive, heavy-duty slide rails.
A kitchen isn’t complete without a wall clock. We finally got to rehang our Kit-Cat Klock:
You’d be surprised at people’s reaction to this thing. It’s like taking a shot of nostalgia for most people.
My wife and I have managed to live in places over the years that have few, if any, drawers. We’ve had a knife magnet since we lived in DC, and it’s always been very useful. It keeps our cutlery uncluttered and out of the way. After we remodeled the kitchen, we couldn’t decide what to put above the range. Neither of us wanted to put up anything too decorative that would date the room, and we had to consider that whatever was there would receive a steam bath whenever we boiled noodles.
The space between the upper cabinets is about 30 inches. Since our knife magnet is only 18 inches long, we ordered another 12 inch magnet from Magnagrip and got to work.
After last week’s work, I started stressing about how to frame the rear wall in a way that would be either inconspicuous or elegant. In other words, my options were to try to hide the laundry area or to accentuate it. I actually lost sleep about it. I wasn’t happy with either option, and I felt relieved when my wife emailed me on Tuesday to say she’d figured out what she wants. She put together a portfolio of kitchen images that had design concepts she liked, and she drew out this design for our rear wall:
It’s a blessing and a curse.
Although the cabinets aren’t scheduled to be installed until the first week of July, we were told we could move the date up if we’re ready sooner. That date was always a conservative estimate. Our ideal plan is to have the bulk of the demolition work done by the end of Memorial Day weekend. This thing arrived on Friday to get the ball rolling.
