Well, after quite a while off due to work commitments, I have finally had a spurt of being productive in the house. The first thing to report on is a little project that is NOT in the kitchen! I don’t think I wrote about it here but my brother came down with his girlfriend a month or so back to spend a few days in London and as we were off out somewhere, I found a wooden cupboard under a railway bridge. Me, being me and not liking seeing things go to waste, I stopped the car, got him to help me carry it back to the house and then we carried on our merry way. Well, here it is before I was let loose on it:
Didn’t really look like much but I liked the moulding and of course the fact it was free. The extra bonus was that it still had a couple of new bulbs in the draw and a box of sparklers! – very timely.
I digress…
Well, having painted some walls in my living room white, I was now ready to add some wall furniture. So, obviously it didn’t fit where I wanted it to go so the pictures below will tell the story of the journey it took:
It had to be chopped down quite a bit, and this included reducing the depth by a fair amount too. I found that the easiest way of me doing this was not to dismantle it and cut each panel to size but to use the jigsaw to cut it all the way around and just keep turning the cupboard over when I got to the end of a side. Worked quite well in the end. I did however have to dismantle the drawer and reduce the side, base and rear panels to make sure it now fitted in properly.
You’ll see in pictures below that this is now painted white (well, half painted) and may well change colour again before the house project is complete. Just getting everything in white for now as a base.
The next job was to add shelves above. My first plan was to get to B&Q, buy some shelf timber, cut them to size and then make the final modifications as and when I place them next to the very ‘un-square’ chimney breast. BUT, I stumbled upon a saw mill not far from the house and I managed to get the shelves cut to size, in 18mm MDF for much cheaper than I would have been able to get the timber for from B&Q anyway. Time and money saved, result.
So, measured up and battened the wall where I wanted them, painted it all up and here is where we are now (below). Well pleased.
You’ll notice the front batten in oak – this is actually another of my great finds. These are strips of kitchen cornicing that I found a Magnet Trade centre throwing away about 2 months ago. Thought they would come in handy when finishing off my kitchen but didn’t suit the style at all in the end. I got 9, 2.5 metre lengths so as I plan to put down a nice oak floor, I think they make a perfect (free) addition to my shelves.
I got so excited that I had a place to put stuff, you’ll see I immediately emptied 2 boxes of books onto the shelves.
[...] concealing operation would have been a nightmare. I had to fit a separate board to the top of the cabinet I fitted earlier in order for it to be wide enough to take the amp I had. Fitting this was quite simple and planed [...]