making lemonade: home improvement

every time i see the title of this post, i immediately think of the 90s sitcom with tim allen. and, as much as i loved jonathan taylor thomas, this is nothing like the show. now that T and i are getting settled into our new place, we are getting into the part of home ownership that makes everyone wish good luck and groan at the same time - home improvement (or as i like to call it personalizing).

so far, T and i have stuck to focusing on small areas as to not get too ahead of ourselves. not too surprising, we've really been enjoying it; even the smallest change makes us that much happier in our home. i know, i know, super stereotypical with all homeowners. but, i thought it would be fun to share bits and pieces of our projects as we go along. so, without further ado...enjoy!

[first thing's first, a stop at lowe's]

[before]

first thing that needed to taken care of was installing shelves on either side of the stove for spice storage. while on a trip to ikea, T and i found the perfect set of white shelves that would serve both our desire for style and functionality. however, when we brought them back to install, we miscalculated how long they needed to be. so, already, our home improvement hit a snag. ugh.

after talking over alternative ideas, we decided to still stick with the shelves but, move them from over the cabinets, to over the stove itself.

[nearly there]

[after]

and, it turned out even better than we originally intended! it was the perfect spot to easily access our spices while cooking and is out of the way. plus, we saved ourselves from dealing with installing the shelves on top of electrical wiring...a big plus since i don't particularly like to electrocute myself.

[before]

next up, was putting together our bar area. T and i love partaking in a good cocktail and knew when we moved in, we would want to designate an easily accessible spot for it. once we agreed on a good area that would be visible but, out of the way, we set on finding shelving, wine storage, and a beverage station. the bar cart was an easy choice to go with since it's easy to move, fit the dimensions we needed, and had the look we were going for. we used the same shelving set-up as the spice rack but, flipped them upside down to allow more space for different sized glasses. lastly, we had received several mod chrome wine racks and felt they would be the perfect compliment to the space. and so, we went about installing...

the shelves and bar cart were no problem but, it was tricky to find wall anchors that would give adequate support to the weight the wine racks would have to bear. so, we stopped by lowe's and got some great advice on what to go with. after a little bit of elbow grease and tweaking (plus, a teensy bit of cursing...i've heard is a regular part of the process ;) ), we got them installed! and we couldn't be happier with the result.

it is one of my favorite areas of the house right now and i love how it came out.