As the name of my blog indicates, I spend a lot of time thinking about home. Of course, my Heavenly Home is the one that is eternal, so that’s where I need to lay up my treasures, and that’s the one I’m striving for. But in the meantime, I have been given this tiny piece of the here-and-now—this home on the edge of town, this family, this neighborhood—in which to serve Him. And, though this is in the earthly realm, I want the things that happen here to be investments in the Heavenly realm.




Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Makeover {From Computer Cabinet to China Closet}


When Ron was on vacation last week, the priority project was the remake of the computer cabinet into a china closet.




The two of us had designed the cabinet years ago to house Henry, the desktop computer. Ron had built retractable doors, a sliding drawer for the keyboard, and a sliding platform for the printer. We had intended to add some shelves for computer software and office supplies, but we never got around to that.




Recently, I mentioned to Ron that Henry had aged out. Kati and I both use our laptops almost exclusively, and I thought that the few things that I wanted to save (photos, a few Word documents, our foreign language program) could be transferred to my laptop. What I really needed was space for dishes! 

Ron agreed to do the makeover!

I Pinned a bunch of ideas, we went on a few scouting trips for supplies, and on Day 1 of his vacation Ron started ripping out the innards of the computer cabinet!



Uh oh. Do you know what that means?

It means that all the stuff inside has to be purged or find new homes. Oh no. Ron finished the entire makeover before I finished relocating all the stuff! Ack!!  


Finally, everything was put away, and the china closet was finished and ready to be filled and organized. I had all my supplies: padded containers for The Grandmother Dishes, a rack for platters and trays, and shelf liner.



Uh oh. Do you know what that means?

It means that The Grandmother Dishes and the Friendly Village dishes and all of the white dishes and the Christmas dishes and the mugs (ack!!) and Aunt Lynn's crystal and the platters and trays must all be organized and placed in this very tiny cabinet.

What? It's not a tiny cabinet?!

Oh, you are so right...but it felt smaller by the moment as the boxes of dishes were retrieved from the attic and plopped into the middle of the kitchen floor. (I showed you a picture ~here~.)

And then when we gathered all the mugs from the kitchen cupboards and the various boxes...good grief!




It took the entire day to get it organized (with a lot of working and pausing to think and rearranging...and a bit of purging), but when all was said and done, I was thrilled!

All of my dishes have a home. No more trips up and down the attic with heavy boxes. Easy access to everything. Win-win-win.

So if I want to drink my coffee from a fall mug tomorrow morning, I can do it! And if I want to set my table for Christmas (I don't), I can do that too! It's all here.










Rethinking the function of a piece of furniture (or even a room) can make your house work better for you!


18 comments:

  1. How wonderful for you. It must feel good to have gone through all the boxes and sorted and organized and now to have them so accessible! A real treasure for you.

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  2. Wonderful idea! Wow...lots of room in there. And I thought I had a lot of mugs and cups...lol! I have a beautiful oak TV cabinet with the doors that roll back that we bought years ago....not a cheap one either....a very nice piece of furniture but like you said, it had aged out and the flat screen TV didn't fit! I took out all of the "guts" and sat a couple of those plastic drawer storage chests in it and use it in the bedroom for socks, underwear, etc. Last summer I took pics and started a post about it and never finished it! You have inspired me to do it!

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  3. Wow! What a great makeover! It is large enough to house everything you already have but not large enough for you to be very tempted to get more. Perfect! You and Ron are a good team :-)

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  4. I love it!

    Seeing your Friendly Village dishes makes me want to continue to collect that pattern. I need to put a bug in the family's ear. I have a birthday coming up!

    Having a fun time in spite of two rainy days. The sun is shining today! Glory, hallelujah!

    Deanna

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  5. Looks fantastic! What a lot of space you found thanks to Ron's handiwork and your own creativity.

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  6. I love the way this has come out! Looks perfect! And having just done a similar thing with my sewing needs I so get the recycling of furniture to meet new needs. How nice this is going to be for you to just pop over to the cabinet and get what you want/need instead of going to the attic. Great job!

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  7. What a great re-purposing of that piece of furniture. Love everything about it! Yippee for handy husband. Enjoy!!

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  8. Oh my. I have to laugh at this. My husband made a beautiful armoire to have in the living room as a television/entertainment centre. I loved being able to close the doors on the tv. It had a pullout tray, drawers in the bottom to house VHS tapes and DVDs, and a swivel stand to turn the television.
    What to do with it now that we have a flat screen sitting in obnoxious obviousness in the living room? The bottom half houses our printer and paper supplies (drawers removed) and Tim installed shelves in the upper half which I'm using to store my table linens.
    I love that you can access all of your dishes now!

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  9. Wow! That's great!! Your blog encourages me. Thanks. tammy

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  10. When I saw all those bins and boxes...I wondered how they would all fit into that cabinet. What a great idea and you did fit them all in. Now, tell me, is there room for more?
    Balisha :)

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  11. That looks great! Well organized! Maybe I'll make over the entertainment unit for a quilt cabinet!
    Wishing you a beautiful day,
    Linda at Beautiful Ideas

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  12. What a great tranformation, Cheryl. I'm sure you will enjoy easy reach for all your lovelies. ♥

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  13. What a terrific makeover! Great job! And you might want to pin this post too, LOL.

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  14. How ingenious of you (and Ron). You will love having your dishes so easily accessible. Great job!

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  15. What a great transformation, Cheryl. It looks great. Now your dishes will be so much easier to access and see what you've got when you need it.

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  16. Whoa, that is a really efficient use of space! That is a great project!

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  17. Perfect transformation. It looks great.

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