April Fools! And yay for organized storage!

First of all, that last post was totally fake. Maybe my April Fools jokes are too subtle, but if you may notice that I did many, many things that were not cost effective to try to preserve or recreate my house’s character, and the facade is the very last thing I would want to modernize. If the original one fell off I’m not sure what I’d do but short of that it stays, period. And although I’m not wholly against panel siding, it’s gotten to be an unimaginative cookie cutter look. According to the architecture column in the Philadelphia Inquirer, it is “now the default on developer-built apartment buildings. That isn’t architecture; it’s a colorful form of weatherproofing.” (Incidentally, she said that here, rightly skewering a bland replacement for an art deco landmark.)

Back to the real world, my plywood drawer fronts are coming along! I told you about a lot of what got the place ready for a roommate but left out the most important part: the first 7 kitchen drawers. I’m putting as many drawers as possible in my base cabinets and it’s amazing. To make them fit, I went to IKEA and measured out the real ones. Then I had to drill out the backs to make them look like store bought fronts. And I made a lot of mistakes, most of which don’t show.

Before everything was either inaccessible or sitting out in clay pots. They were kinda charming and definitely the best I could do at the time.

And now I have this!

So the flat plywood fronts are working out better than I thought they would. I screwed up drilling holes into a few of them so I have a little patching and repainting to do but for now it’s much, much improved. And I love the way things fit now. So much.

Like these drawer dividers. They look like filing cabinets, but in a good way. And they really help things fit together.

And this drawer that is JUST the right size!

And this empty strip of countertop! The 4 drawers next to the dishwasher just went in today. They weren’t as important as the first 7 until the first 7 went in and I really wanted to finish the job.

Plus getting the upper cabinets cleared out and organized. It looks like I have room for china now! (I also got the exhaust fan vent hooked up, finally.)

Seriously, it’s so great.

And I’ve started to sorta arrange the crystal in the display cabinet! Ignore the pile of candles.

I kinda wanted to bring over china right away, but it was clearly smarter to hold off on that. I want to add little bits of trim to the shelves in that cabinet above so I can stand up plates in the back. And then I think I’ll paint it the same blue as my fronts and maybe get brave and make homemade glass doors. Am I up to the task?

And what do we say about the brass knobs? I’ll need to buy 4-6 more to finish off the lower cabinets.