Pinterest

So here's the deal. I'm (more than a little) obsessed with Pinterest. There, I admitted it. I am happy to say that thanks to my constant prodding about it, Bridget finally joined up a couple months ago and she is equally obsessed. The majority of our conversations these days begin with something along the lines of "did you see that thing I pinned?"... and I love it.

Dan, and many many others, seem to think that Pinterest is a big fat waste of time, and while it very well might be in some aspects (say, when I spend an hour pinning instead of working or doing laundry), it is also a constant source of inspiration right at our fingertips. It has made me more creative and sparked countless craft projects, given me the courage to be a little more bold in my personal style, and helped me plan several dinners, parties and random get-togethers... among other things.

Last night while heading to dinner, Bridget and I got on the topic of Pinterest (shocking!) and I mentioned that it would be interesting for me to go through my pins and see what I've actually done. And because Pinterest is that amazing - I have done a LOT... and now I'm going to blog about it as proof that it's not all just pretty pictures and unreachable things (although I admit that some of it is)!

Here's a roundup of what I've pinned... and then actually done something with!

CRAFTS

Clockwise from top left: 

• I learned how to transfer a photo onto a block of wood, which I used for an art project here at work just this week
• I made a ton of these handy little clothespin magnets with scrapbook paper with some leftover clothespins from the wedding
• I lined the back panels of our dining room hutch with fun paper that instantly brightened it up
• I painted the lyrics to our first dance onto a canvas as a Christmas gift to Dan
• Dan an I DIY'd a headboard for our bedroom and used the shape I liked from this image

COOKING

• I made cupcake fondue for Kadence's 4th birthday, and we all had a blast decorating little mini cupcakes with tons of sprinkles
• This gingerbread cheesecake trifle went to my gramma's house on Christmas Eve with us
• Dan's cookies for our cookie exchange party were these snickerdoodles
• Manda, Bridget and I indulged in apple pie ice cream in the fall
• These little mini baked apple donuts were DELICIOUS and a huge hit at work
• I made these peppermint snowballs as my contribution to our cookie exchange party

FASHION

• I've purchased a few pairs of pants that are NOT jeans, including some fun brights! The girl in this photo is someone who's daily outfits push me to try something a little bit outside of my regular
• I already had a striped dress almost identical to this one, and have actually worn it to WORK a few times, which is really a big step for me
• I bought a bunch of knee socks. I am in love.
• I scored a pair of nerd glasses for $14 online and have been rocking them every day since they arrived. Girls at work have complimented me endlessly and one even said the glasses elevate my entire look. Awesome.
• A girl at work and this tutorial taught me how to curl my hair with a straightener - SO easy
• I exchanged a couple Christmas things and snatched up the perfect rose gold watch I pinned
• Post-wedding, I got a layered sorta choppy haircut, just like Reese
• After seeing a bunch of pins about a big top-bun, I tried it once on the weekend, loved it, and slowly gained the confidence to wear it to work... where I (again) get a bunch of compliments every time. I work with some sweet people!
• I learned how to tie a skinny belt a bunch of ways

WEDDING

• I learned how to make pinwheels to cover up un-pretty things at our reception space
• My mom, gramma, aunts, sister, friends and even Dan joined forces to make hundreds of tissue paper flowers which made for awesome handmade centerpieces
• I saw this quote and (finally) let go of the little things that didn't go my way on our big day
• I ripped off this cute door hanger idea and put one in each of our hotel guest bags
• Hair inspiration!
• My mom used some guides from Pinterest to make flowers out of pieces of her wedding veil to attach to my teal shoes
• I used this tutorial to make a fabric flower for my hair, which I adorned with one of my grandma's old buttons as a little way of having her with me that day

OTHER

A few random ones here...

• This punch was a hit at our cookie exchange party
• I recently tried out an aspirin mask to reduce inflammation in my skin
• I've been writing down one line a day as a personal reminder to be thankful for the little things throughout the year (I'm keeping mine in a little book rather than a jar, but got the idea here)
• All the years of me throwing fits about annoying stickers on things got better when someone pinned this little trick of using a blowdryer to get them off

So there you have it - all the wonderful little things I've seen/found/done/copied off of Pinterest. And this, my friends, is just a snapshot of al the amazing things that site has to offer. Just ask Bridget.

You can see ALL of my pins here: pinterest.com/kve_pins/

DIY Headboard

I have a tendency to think about/write about/talk about all kinds of projects that I have "HUGE" plans for... and then never actually get around to them. Sometimes though, while it may take months or even years, I DO actually tackle projects that I've been dying to try out... and thankfully, often times they are successful!

Our latest undertaking was a DIY headboard, which is definitely on the "been talking about it for years" list. I randomly bought fabric for the project back at the beginning of our wedding planning because I was at a textile outlet and found something I liked for cheap... but of course with the wedding being my #1 priority for most of 2011, the fabric just sat unused for quite some time. When I ended up with a 4-day weekend for Martin Luther King's birthday I convinced Dan to head to Home Depot for the plywood, and our headboard extravaganza began...

I learned from reading a billion blogs that Home Depot will cut pieces of wood for you, which was obviously a huge help - and allowed us to actually fit this into the CR-V.

Here's Dan wheeling everything out to the car. The bottom piece is the actual headboard - the 2 smaller pieces are the remainder of the 4x8' sheet of plywood. Since we had to buy the entire sheet regardless, we figured we may as well take the extra pieces home to have for something else down the road.

To figure out what size we needed, we just measured the width of our queen size bed and added about 2 inches to be safe. For height, we made the bed complete with all of our pillows propped up and I grabbed a piece of chalk and drew a (very crooked) line on the wall behind our bed as a visual reference. Once we got to a height we liked we measured from the bottom of our mattress to the chalk line, and again added a couple inches just to be safe (I would have rather had the headboard end up a little taller than a little shorter). All in all the measurements ended up being 41" tall and 60" wide.

Originally, we were just going to do a regular old rectangular headboard... and then my mom told me she had a jigsaw we could borrow and I decided it would be fun to add a little shape to our headboard. So, we waited until this past weekend when we could stop by to grab it, and then decided on just rounding in the top corners for a simple - but a little more fancy - shape. 

Once our board was cut we arranged 1" thick foam across almost the whole thing. Since I wanted the headboard to go to the bottom of our mattress but did NOT want it to cause our mattress to sit far from the wall, we did not put any foam on the bottom 9 inches of the board, but still wrapped it in fabric for a seamless look.

We read that it isn't totally necessary to glue the foam to the board if you're using batting (which we were), but we decided to use a little spray mount anyways, which Dan had fun with. We also thought this was probably a good idea because we had to cut a couple of smaller pieces of foam to fit in on some of the edges, and wanted to be sure those stayed put for the long haul.

In case anyone is wondering - I did the un-environmentally friendly thing and bought regular old foam at Walmart for about $20, rather than the "green" foam from the fabric store that would have cost me closer to $75. Sorry Earth, I'm not planning to throw this thing out for awhile, and I don't have that kind of money for to spruce up my bed.

I forgot to take a picture of the next step, but it was the fairly easy process of wrapping a big piece of quilt batting over the whole thing and stapling it on the back around all the edges. Then we steamed our big piece of fabric and went to work wrapping that over the batting. I was super excited about how easy it was to get the batting right on the rounded in corners, which made it a little cruel when the fabric was a HUGE pain to get right in those same spots.

 

We realized pretty late in the game that we were using flat staples and probably should have been using the pointy ones (which we didn't have). This made Dan's job of doing the actual stapling a huge pain, but since he's not me, he made it work without any dramatic meltdowns.

We haven't actually attached our beautiful new headboard to the wall yet so it's a little crooked here, but Dan still helped me set it all up to take a quick phone picture so I could write about it in the meantime!

Isn't it fun?!?

I MAY be adding nailhead trim to the finished product before we hang it, but that will depend on if I actually find the trim at Michael's tonight. I thought I had already bought it at the same outlet I got the fabric at, but apparently what I actually bought was the little things you use to bedazzle a shirt a la 1990 and NOT nailhead trim. Awesome. If I do in fact add the trim, I'll be sure to get my good camera out and take a "real" final picture to post!

We took a few breaks throughout the whole process to switch out laundry, eat a snack, and lay around because I was having some weird stomach pains for most of the day, but overall our little project probably only took us a couple of hours total! And since I'm a cheapskate and bought my fabric at an outlet and helped destroy our planet with bargain foam, this entire project ran me a measly $50 or so. Not bad considering this similarly-shaped Crate & Barrel version will run you an insane $799! And with that... my little bedroom makeover is officially in progress. :)

Oh, and...

I almost forgot to post another little update last week! It may not be the most exciting thing to just anyone, but it is for me. Check out this handy shelf we grabbed at Target for the bathroom, which Dan put up for me on New Years Eve while we were waiting for our guests to arrive.

(The bathroom is teal - not sure why it's showing so straight-blue here)

I love that we now have somewhere besides our main towel bar to keep hand towels, which I used to only put out when we were having parties. The black and white fabric box is from the Liberty of London for Target line and houses a bunch of my little daily beauty products like eye makeup remover and dry shampoo. The little vase was on clearance at West Elm ages ago for something like $3 and now holds my makeup brushes and a "lollipop" of ponytail holders from Bridget. Up top is a pretty smelling candle and a jar that is now full of cotton balls. And let's not forget to point out my hair straightener that hangs perfectly from the bar out of the way, instead of sitting on the sink to cool off every morning like it used to (thus ending up there all day because I would rush out the door before it was cool enough to put away). It's the little things. Unfortunately for OCD me, the shelf had to be hung slightly off center above the toilet because of the random capped off electrical box on the wall (behind my makeup brushes in the photo above), but I'm dealing.

I think if I'm talking about bathroom updates my new-ish lovely shower curtain is also worth noting, don't you?

We picked the curtain up at Target shortly after we decided to register for all gray and white towels for the wedding, which definitely would not match the brown patterned curtain that used to be there. The lighter gray color here helps the room feel less overwhelming, and as you may have noticed above - matches my hand towels, which I can assure you makes me endlessly happy.

We've also added one of those toilet paper extra-roll things (super technical term there for you) that was a nice change from the store-bought pack of extra rolls we used to have just sitting on the floor, and a teeny little hamper (wedding gift from Kevin and Erica) that I (try to) throw my pjs in every morning when I jump in the shower. Dan understandably HATES when I leave my clothes in a pile behind the bathroom door, so the hamper was a welcome addition. :)

In other news, I am in love. With a couch.

Two of my work buddies recently purchased this beauty from a store called Roy's here in Chicago, and I am dying to be the third person around here to call it mine. I dragged Dan to see it over the long weekend and after looking at a bunch of other stores and outlets we're mostly on the same page that it's the best we've seen... but at $800 it's not really an easy thing for our teeny budget minds to grasp. I've been told a million times that $800 is "a great price!!!" for a couch, but I'm still experiencing a little sticker shock as that is a LOT of money! Thankfully, while we agree that our current couch could definitely use replacing, we don't have to buy a new one right now and can afford to wait for a sale to come up at the store. 

If we do decide to bite the bullet on the couch, we will have to make the decision on which fabric we want it in out of at least 100 options. The fact that you get to choose your fabric for no additional cost really drew me to Roy's, as we'd like to find something that not only fits our style but is Louie-friendly. Truth be told - I'd like to train Louie to NOT go on the couch if we get a new one, but we'll tackle that when we come to it.

I really love this gray "heather" fabric that's pretty heavy-duty, has some texture and almost has a little bit of a salt-and-pepper look to it. I think the different colors and dimensions in the fabric would help hide Louie's hair a bit (not to mention the dirt that he inevitably tracks in the house).

Dan pointed out that the texture doesn't have a super tight weave, and therefore may snag more easily (say, from Louie's nails), so we may go a different route for the fabric if we decide to buy this specific couch.

We're continuing to make amazing progress in the office and I can't wait to share photos of it soon! For now, I'm heading out to dinner in a bit to celebrate my mom's birthday with her and Manda. Happy birthday Mom - Love you lots!!

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

To Dan's disappointment, since the wedding I have yet to get to a point where I'm ready to just RELAX. I'm certain this has something to do with the fact that I spent the last several months prior to the wedding literally doing projects every single day so I'm not exactly used to having all kinds of evening and weekend free time. Something in me changed when we got married - it's like I suddenly feel like a "real" adult and I'm on a mission to get my entire life in order - starting with things like decluttering the linen closet and finally, finally, FINALLY cleaning our home office. David, a guy I babysit for, calls it nesting - and I think he's exactly right. I'm anxious to get to a point that I really and truly feel like I can relax in our house, and I think the fact that I can see the light at the end of this tunnel is what's giving me the insane amount of energy to work to get it all done sooner than later.

To that point, we (well mostly I) have been making lots of little changes around the house. As usual, I didn't bother to take real pictures of anything, so here's a good and LONG iphone photo update of what's been going on here at 9-oh-6.

We painted the hallway! I honestly cannot put into words how happy it makes me... or how huge of a pain it was to do. We went with Dolphin Fin by Behr, which was the color I painted swatches of ages ago, and I am endlessly giddy about it. Unfortunately, I still don't know how to really use my good camera, so the color looks different in every single picture below... but oh well.

To celebrate the newly painted hallway, we hung some stuff up in it...

The lyrics to our first dance, which I painted onto a canvas as a Christmas present to Dan -

 An adorable painting of Louie Louie, done by Manda as a Christmas gift to Dan -

An "I love you because..." frame, another Christmas gift from me to Dan.

Got this idea off Pinterest and LOVE it - 

A cool piece Bridget and I each scored on clearance from Ikea for a whopping $4 -

My favorite wedding card, which was from a colleague of Dan's. It's gorgeous and letterpressed, and reads "Build a strong foundation and you will sway through life's little earthquakes." Our gospel reading talked about building a foundation, so it really means a lot to us -

Louie Louie wanted to be in the photoshoot too - 

At the top of the stairs is one of my favorite random things ever. It's an owl statue I found on clearance at West Elm one night when Manda and I were out, and it made me laugh so hard I just had to have it. I still smile every time I see him sitting at the top of the stairs (on a free plant stand Bev found when we drove through Western Springs junkaway days last year - don't judge) -

In the bedroom, we finally got a bedskirt that works for our apparently overly large box spring and my new obsession with gray -

We also brought the ottoman from the living room upstairs to put at the foot of the bed, replacing the horrible white shelf thing from Ikea that we used to hit our knees on no less than twice a week. It's the perfect storage for my scarves and belts that don't fit in drawers. I THINK I can recover it in a bright patterned cotton someday if I want to, but for now I'll leave it alone since Dan told me to chill out and stop trying to change everything :) -

These sequined pillows were $6 each at Target on New Years Eve so I obviously bought them for the downstairs decor since we were hosting a party that evening. They're pretty close to the color of the couch so they were quickly relocated to the bed where they look perfect - 

The ottoman got to leave the living room thanks to my first major deal of the year - a $250 Pier 1 coffee table that I grabbed from the as-is section for $20. I have to get glass cut for it, but it shouldn't be more than $20-30 so I still think it's an awesome deal. AND, the airy design looks much less blocky than the solid ottoman in our tiny little living room and shows off more of my favorite rug, which is great -

I also replaced the fake wood $10 Ikea end table... with the exact same table in a super glossy lacquered gray. It was in the as-is section for $6 and I couldn't pass it up since one of my favorite blog posts ever is all about one of those exact tables in light blue being very simply turned into an awesome piece (see it here). I've put tissue paper flowers from the wedding in a few vases, including this one from my mom! -

(check out the reflection on that thing! I'm in love)

Crate & Barrel was having an insane after-Christmas sale that sent me home with two of these bright striped pillow covers for $4 each. My existing pillow inserts fit perfectly in them and I was able to get rid of the ugly velvety ones that used to be there and gave my brother's girlfriend the chills (the girl HATES velvet, and I sort of don't blame her) -

The loss of the storage space in the ottoman meant I needed a basket for blankets. Manda helped me pick this one out at Home Goods and it sits on the other side of the couch where Louie can't really get at it -

Speaking of Louie, here he is modeling the fun new green runner, also from the CB after-Christmas sale. You can't hear him, but he's telling Dan to put away his shoes - 

In the dining room, I am happy to announce that I FINALLY have a tablecloth for our table! We looked around a lot for one to register for, but couldn't find anything we liked. This was on sale at CB today for $30 and it's a perfect mustard yellow kind of color, in a heavy linen. You can also see my brand new napkins, which we registered for but did not receive and Dan sweetly got me for Christmas. They're pretty expensive for napkins (at least to us), and I'm sure it was tough for my frugal hubby to spend so much on something so small, so I really appreciated him getting them for me knowing how badly I wanted them! -

(PS - don't judge the amount of time I've been spending at CB - I stopped in today because we got a postcard saying our wine glasses are being discontinued and replaced with identical ones in a new kind of glass that will cost more, so I wanted to try and grab a few of the originals to have as backups. They were already gone so no luck, but at least I got a great tablecloth.)

I don't think I ever posted a picture of my finished little yellow cabinet! Like a lot of other things in our house, it makes me happy every time I see it, and considering I spent a grand total of $8 on the little knobs and it was otherwise totally free, I love it -

I styled one side of the top of the hutch with some of my favorite wedding things - the birdcage used for cards, and the candle, vase and frame of names in memory of our family and friends that were not with us that day -

And in the center below the window are the table numbers from the

reception that insure we will never forget our wedding date -

When I cleared out the hutch after the wedding to put all of our gifts away, I lined the back panels with a fun patterned paper I got at Paper Source. The sheets were literally the exact width of the panels, which made the project 100 times easier than I was expecting it to be. I like how it lightens up the hutch a bit and brings more color and pattern into my favorite room in the house - 

In the kitchen is the fabulous craigslist find kitchen cart, which I painted in navy blue the same weekend we painted the hallway. I'm having some issues with things sticking to the top and leaving marks even though it dried for days before I put anything on it, so I may have to redo the top and use some kind of sealant eventually. The endgrain chopping board was a wedding gift from my coworkers and the cake plate is one of the ones I made for the wedding -

Finally, back upstairs in the office... we've been cleaning like CRAZY and throwing away insane amounts of random old stuff that was just taking up space. It's a little embarrassing to admit, but I think this is literally the first time I've ever been able to set up my laptop at my desk and type. Dan hung up my DIY bulletin board last night and I love looking up at some of my favorite little things hanging there. We still have a bit of work to do and thanks to getting rid of so much I can actually style a few of the shelves so I'm looking forward to finishing it all up this week -

So, we've been busy, but I am thrilled about how great the house is looking. And, I'm excited to have things to blog about again! Here's to week 2 of 2012 being as fun as week 1 was...

30 Before 30... meh

It's funny how things change - with or without you taking note of it. Take my 30 Before 30 list, for example, that I created shortly after my 28th birthday (at the tail end of 2010). I had all these big plans of traveling and doing a bunch of extracurricular activities and basically flipping my life upside down by going back to school and attempting to work for myself. Little did I know, Dan was planning to propose just a couple of months after I wrote my list, and I dove head first into planning a majorly DIY wedding that I had a ball with, but left little time for things like baking bread from scratch or taking dance classes. 


While some of the things are still plenty feasible (and there's a few I've actually accomplished!), I'm taking a fresh look at my list and deciding to take on life, in general, with a different approach than I have in the past. In short, my hope is that I can begin to live much more deliberately - that is, appreciating what and who I have, relishing in the everyday, consistently remembering just how blessed I am, and truly "living in the moment" (as cliche as it may sound). 


Here's the original list, with accomplished ones crossed out. I still have until mid-August before I officially hit the big 3-0, so hopefully a few more of these will get done over the coming months!


30 BEFORE 30
1. Leave the country
2. Enroll back in school to begin working towards my bachelor's degree
3. Learn to sew
4. Put all of my pictures in albums, get prints of all of my digital photos and put them in albums as well
5. Work for myself (whether it be in addition to another job or a full on business)
6. Run a marathon. Ok ok... or at least a half marathon
7. Take a trip with my sister  (We road tripped to Florida last winter between Christmas and New Years to visit Kevin and Erica with Dan and Allie! Vacation without any parents?? We had a blast.)
8. Spend a day at a spa  (I didn't 100% do this, but I'm crossing it out anyways. I DID spend an evening getting massages with Bridget and then mani/pedis with all of my bridesmaids the night before the wedding, which is why I'm calling this one a "sort of done". I'm crossing it out because as much as I enjoy an occasional manicure or a massage from Dan, I truly think that I would get REALLY bored spending an entire day at a spa.)
9. See the Grand Canyon in person
10. Finish compiling my Top 10 (Easy) Recipes list
11. Get dressed up and take my Gramma to dinner and a show
12. Make money blogging (seriously, even if I make $10, I'll count it)  (Thanks to a new position at work, I am now a semi-regular contributor to our agency blog. And since my job pays my salary, I'm counting it!)
13. Become more of a morning person
14. Buy real truffles and feel amazing cooking with them
15. Join a team. Any team. (I've played park district kickball with Jeff and his friends for a couple of seasons now. SO. Much. Fun.)
16. Go to a drive-in movie
17. Create a piece of artwork to hang in my home (Completed x2! As Christmas gifts to Dan, I painted a canvas with the lyrics to our first dance, and also took an idea from Pinterest and made him a little "I love you because..." frame that I'm having fun filling in the blank for every couple days.)
18. Meet Harry Connick Jr. in person
19. Reduce our grocery spending by utilizing coupons on a regular basis
20. Make a loaf of bread from scratch
21. Dramatically improve my posture
22. Volunteer an afternoon at the Greater Chicago Food Depository
23. Go on a picnic with Dan
24. Cook a 5-course meal
25. Take a dance class
26. Bake my late Grandmother's famous cheesecake
27. Learn how to do my makeup further than my 3-minute daily ritual of mascara and sheer mineral shadow, and learn to do something more to my hair than wear it down or throw it in a ponytail
28. Go ziplining or parasailing (both are things I am terrified of)
29. Figure out a system for dealing with mail, bills, important papers, etc, that actually WORKS for me, and use it
30. Spend a weekend with Maryrose, just the 2 of us, eating good food, drinking good wine, getting the tattoo we've been talking about for years, and wasting our time away doing whatever we want

I resolve...

...to eat out less and cook at home more
...to finally get our office at home in order
...to work to make our first year of marriage something amazing

...to get back to blogging regularly

...to be the best friend I can be to the awesome friends I have
...to try and stop swearing so much

...to apply myself 100% at work
...to do yoga twice a week

...and to make 2012 an unforgettable year overall. 2011 will be a tough one to beat, what with a wedding, a new position at work and all the fun we had with friends and family, but I'm convinced it's going to be a good one.

Happy New Year friends!

In the kitchen

Anyone that has ever been to our house is likely well aware of the fact that I have a strong love-hate relationship with our kitchen. I'm still insanely proud of how big of a transformation we made on a teeny tiny budget, and I looooove our stainless steel appliances and the fact that we have a dishwasher. But, the room itself is extremely tiny and the only place for the fridge to go results in the one and only base cabinet and drawer we have to be covered up.

As a refresher, here's a picture from right after we finished our kitchen makeover -

We've since made little changes - like getting a paper towel holder that mounts to the wall instead of having them take up precious counter space, and putting up hooks for kitchen towels so Louie Louie doesn't use them as toys - but for the most part the room still looks just like this picture. 

While my absolute dream is to knock a big hole in the wall opposite everything you see above (which separates the kitchen from the dining room) and add in a countertop with a couple of base cabinets below it, Dan has consistently reminded me over the years that since said wall is load-bearing, we'd have to hire someone to do the work... and it would be even MORE expensive because there is plumbing and electrical work running straight through that same wall. (Insert sad trombone here).

So since we can't exactly afford a remodel, we've recently been kicking around the much more affordable idea of getting a little kitchen cart to put on that same wall for a bit of extra storage AND additional counter space. 

Always major cheapskates (or frugal, to put it a little nicer), we didn't want to actually have to spend any money on this project, since it was more of a "nice to have" than a "have to have". So even though we found and liked this nice and simple option at Ikea, we didn't bite the bullet and spend the $100 on it last time we were there -

And now I'm thankful that we decided to wait on the purchase, because just this last weekend I found the exact same cart, in perfect condition, barely a mile from our house, on craigslist for $45. I, of course, sent over a lower offer, and within a few hours we were on our way home with our "new" kitchen cart for a measly $30!

The cart looks awesome on the open wall and is shallow enough that it doesn't even really feel like it crowds the space. And thankfully, our ridiculously expensive wedding present garbage can just fits next to it, so we didn't have to try and relocate that somewhere else. I have big plans to paint the cart a nice rich navy, and from there we'll be able to load it up with some things that are currently kind of displaced. I'm particularly excited to get my (wedding shower gift from my mom) bright and colorful mixing bowls on one of the shelves and out of the pantry where there isn't room for them. We also received a gorgeous end-grain chopping board as a wedding gift from some of my coworkers, and I can't wait to actually be able to "display" it on top of the cart rather than having it shoved in a corner like it is now. And, perhaps the most exciting thing of all - the cart has two whole drawers (!!!!) where things like the can opener and citrus zester will live, rather than having them in the drawer that is behind the fridge, which I can assure you is SUPER inconvenient.

I'm committed to keeping the cart clutter-free overall, but already know that just being able to store a few items on the open shelving will be a huge help, and the additional counter space will be great for when we host guests or are both trying to do something in the kitchen at the same time! Pictures to come once the painting is done!...