Renovating the kitchen is creating a chain reaction, as we look for ways to use what we already have to create better storage solutions in different areas!

Here are the rooms that are being shifted around:

1) Younger boys bedroom – even though we lost a bedroom when we moved we don’t feel the lack since their room is spacious with plenty of room for the toys.  The kitchen cabinet set that I bought included a large pantry closet, but I didn’t put it in the kitchen because I felt it would overwhelm the space and make it feels small.  Instead, we moved it to the boys’s bedroom and it’s now a great toy closet.

The new closet replaced the cabinet to the left that used to be our toy cabinet, which has now been moved to yet another room that is in the progress of being reorganized – our soon-to-be home office.

Home office – many people here renovate their storage rooms to use as home offices.  Originally when we discussed this option before moving, dh said he preferred to rent office space somewhere else, but he hasn’t found somewhere to rent and doesn’t want so spend more time looking for a space and then furnishing it.  In the meantime he’s been working from the boys’ bedroom, which was obviously a short term solution.

We’ve decided to convert our storage room to a home office and in the past few days have made big strides forward with this.  It should be operational as a separate work space tomorrow when a separate phone line will be installed.

Ds9 wanted to use the wood from the cabinets to build a desk for dh.  

When he said this, I realized that rather than take the cabinet apart and rebuild something new, we could easily repurpose it.  We used this cabinet since it had drawers at the top, shortened it to be a comfortable height for sitting, took off the doors and after we get the piece of marble slab remaining from the old countertop trimmed, will use it as the desktop.  It looks much better than this now.  🙂  Voila!  A great workspace.  It even matches the storage cabinet above that sits right next to it.

Laundry room – this is such a small area that it doesn’t really deserve to be called a laundry room.  It’s the laundry space.  But it being so small and also being a walk-through to our yard means it’s even more helpful that it’s well-organized.  

We installed one of the bottom cabinets opposite our washing machine, two top cabinets above that, and the last top cabinet above the washer.

There was a final bottom cabinet that I planned to throw away, then realized if we turned it upside down, it would make a great frame for a rabbit hutch (more about the rabbits another time :)).

As we near the end of our kitchen renovation, we have nothing left that will end up in a landfill.  Someone took the second half of the marble countertop and the final boards will be cut down to make additional shelving for one of our clothing closets.  Recycling at its best!

Avivah