Little Project, Big Difference

I have grand plans for my kitchen.

A butcher block island with a small sink.

Pretty slab countertops.

Heavy hardware pulls and knobs.

Funky pendant lighting.

You know, for when I have an extra $10,000 floating around.

One of the things I’ve always wanted was to replace the cupboard doors near my sink with some glass paned doors.

I know it would be easy and relatively inexpensive to do…I just haven’t really wanted to deal with it.

So, I’ve left it alone the last couple of years and everytime I get frustrated with my dirty dishes, my white grout, or my builder grade cupboards, I remember this:

A verse I scribbled onto a scrap of paper and taped to the inside of one of these cupboard doors.

Right where I put my plates.

Right where I see it every time I empty the dishwasher.

UNTIL…I saw this post.  Where Melissa simply took the doors off of her cupboards to achieve a similar look!

DUH!

And I knew I could pull it off easily because my dishes are all white anyway.  (That’s a topic for a whole other post!)

So, when Andy was out of town one weekend, I took it upon myself to borrow his drill.

And in less than 2 minutes, my doors were gone! (and sitting in the sink…brilliant.)

See?  The insides of my cupboards were already relatively orgnaized…they just needed a little rearranging.

So I separated out all of the colored stuff.  The randoms, the water bottles, the mismatched mugs.  Those went into another cupboard…one with doors still on it.

And then I shopped my house for other pieces that were either white or clear glass.

I didn’t end up using all of it in the end, but at least I could visually see what I had to work with.

So I arranged, and rearranged, moved plates from one side to the other, trying to figure out what I liked best visually.

I used the top shelf for pretty serving pieces that had previously lived hidden in cupboards unseen.

And I liked it.

It looked better than with the doors on it.

Less tract home vanilla cabinets…more character.

But…as I stared at my open shelves…something wasn’t…quite…right.

I kept looking at it, wondering what was bugging me.

And I realized:

It just looks like…the insides of my cupboards.

Yeah, I know.  Don’t make fun of me.

And while I liked it better…I wasn’t in love with it.

And I really hate when that happens.

I felt like everything blended in a little too much…there wasn’t enough contrast…

AHA!

I remembered my antique hutch that had the same problem…

The red tones of the wood made it so that you could hardly see the gorgeousness of my Le Creuset collection.

Nothing a little scrapbook paper and some glue dots can’t fix!

(I didn’t want to paint the piece…it really is an antique…like 1800’s or something).

So, I did the same to my cupboards:

See the difference?

MUCH better, no?

Now you can really see my Martha cake stands.  And that’s really all that matters folks.

This entire project, start to finish, took less than two hours and $7 in scrapbook paper.

And it only took that long because I couldn’t make up my mind how I wanted stuff arranged and had to change shelf heights about 400 times.

This is a great way to change things up easily, quickly, and non-permenantly.

Perfect for renters or people like me who change their mind like the winds.

What do you think?  Better?  Worse?  Or does it just look like the cabinet doors are missing?

Have you read Maggie‘s story yet?

You really should.  She’s too cute.  :)

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jeannett

I'm a mom to four. A wife to one. I believe in story. I love telling you about mine and would love to hear yours. There's really no sense in wasting our suffering and not sharing in each other's joy. We're all in this together...even if it doesn't always feel like it.

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