Wednesday, September 3, 2008

I built some sh*t

So, I was really flattered when Gina invited me to be a contributor to this blog; then I got some sort of creative block. A year and a half later, I finally have something to share.

I live in what was a really drab (Navajo white paint and cheap gray carpet) apartment when I first moved in. Slowly but surely, thanks to cheap rent (and rent control) and real estate prices, I've been motivated to make some minor improvements.

The last bastion of ugliness was my kitchen; the scope of the project was so overwhelming I didn't know where to begin. Finally, I took the plunge and signed up for woodshop class through the adult education program in my area. I proceeded to build a new cabinet for one wall in my kitchen, strip, sand and repaint all the existing cabinet frames, and build all new doors and drawers for them.

Why do this, especially when I rent? Well, due to the aforementioned cheap rent and high cost of owning, I knew I was going to be here for a while, and why live in ugliness when you don't have to? Secondly, it cost me less than an additional month's rent to redo the kitchen and when you take a gander below, I think you'll understand why it was so worth it.

So, with no further ado, I present to you, my kitchen (oh, and if you click the little callout symbol on the lower left of the embedded show, you'll see the captions for the pictures - and I think if you click on the slide show itself you can go to a full-size version of the pictures...):

2 comments:

Gina said...

OH MY GOD! I am incredibly impressed. You took a class... and built new cabinets. WOW! My favorite part is the routed shelves with the curved edges on the top cabinets. They all still look vintage-y, but really, really nice. Wow.

Your landlord shoulda paid you to do that. You've really improved the place for him! I think it was worth it, because you've had your practice now, and when you own you'll be even better at putting in new cabinets at that place.

Niki said...

Thanks! The doors really were pretty easy to make - the hardest part was getting them aligned on the cabinets. And maybe someday I will let my landlord see what I've done; meanwhile I've got an apartment that would cost at least $400 more a month if someone wanted to rent it today.

And you're right - the practice was invaluable - I have a whole list of "don'ts" for anyone who's interested :-P