Secure and recharge

Our beloved first child (our dog) happens to LOVE bread.  When we leave, he finds a way to get all the bread an eat it.

(How can you get mad at this face)?!?! He’s a pure bred Weimaraner if you’re curious, whose can rest his head on a “normal” sized dining room table.

My husband came up with a solution, that not only secures the bread from the dog…it also helps to store the toaster and also serves as a recharge station for all of our cell phones, iPods, iPads, etc. every night.  This is one of my husband’s favorite projects. You may have already seen this here.

To appreciate this here’s what our little kitchen corner looked like before.  A useless spice rack (since I store all of my spices in the cupboard), weird empty space, and a smorgasboard of cords.  One of my BIGGEST pet peaves is having cords showing! Have I also mentioned that I like the spaces in my home to be not only pretty but functional whenever possible.

Here’s the inside- deep enough for house the toaster freeing up some space on one of my two pantry shelves.  It’s also wide enough for several different bread products.

You can kind of see how he made it above.  The door is made by “a bunch” (real technical, I know?!?) of thin wood slats glued to a piece of canvas.  There is a curved groove on the sides that the door travels up and down in.  There is a small open space in the back to allow the board from the toaster to pass through.

The top shelf has little slits in the back to fit our cell phone and iPod charging cords, with felt glued to the back to hold them in place.  I love that our phone and iPod have a place to rest peacefully each night to recharge without 17 cords spread out throughout the house!

This is just one more example of how I can tell the handy husband an idea of something I want, and he brings that idea to life!

Functional kitchen corner {organization}

I HATE useless space.  I have a corner on my kitchen counter that was just that…useless space.  Inevitably everyday another pile grew in that corner like an unwanted weed.  What I needed was a little handyman help.

I told the husband to make something to put there that was functional, and that would hide the outlet/cords (it also happens to be the best place to charge our tech gizmos) and yet not so permanent that I can’t change my mind in 2 years.  Whose with me?

Here’s what the corner looked like before (this is the “picked up” version)

Cords, cords, and more cords.  Oh, and a spice rack filled with stale spices that are over 5 years old.  The handyman’s solution…

A custom-designed and custom-built “counter garage” (that’s what the handyman calls it).  The back is completely open, and nothing is adhered to either the wall or the counter.  The platform on top has notches cut in the back to hold our tech gizmo charging cords with out the mess we had before.  Best of all, I can close the lid to hide whatever I put in there.

So what do you put in there? A little background here.  I think I mentioned in my kick off organization post that we have no pantry, just a bottom cupboard built-in lazy Susan.  Pantry space is at a premium and well I was looking to free up some space and keep just food product in there.  Which means I needed to find a new home for the pesky toaster that leaves crumbs where ever we put it!

And secondly, our pet Weimaraner has the free reign of the house.  He’s been stellar for 3 years never stealing a thing off the counter.  In recent months we think he is feeling a little “starved” for attention, or just learning that he has potential access to more stuff during the day.  Now NO FOOD, even packaged, can remain out on the counter.  Complete containers of cinnamon rolls, loaves of bread, sandwich thins, chips, you name it needs to get stuffed away.  Oddly apples and bananas are still safe in the fruit basket.  Hmm, maybe he’s picking up the eating habits of our 2-year-old.  In any case the “counter garage” is now home to…

and

It’s a pretty massive storage area, that the husband, aka handyman, built with the dimensions of most toasters in mind.  His thought process was we can easily slide the toaster in and out plug it in as we need it.  The crumbs that follow the toaster are a lot easier to clean up in the counter garage than in the lazy Susan (required vacuum and completely emptying the cupboard…guess how often that DIDN’T happen)!  And it solves the solution of food lock-down to prevent dog-child from a feast throughout the day.  All we need to do is pull the door down.

If you want specifics on how to build-your-own “Counter Garage”  feel free to email me.  The handyman said it was a lot easier than he anticipated!