anywhoozits, here's a little background for you. when I was 20 in 2006, I bought a house (cosigned by Papa dearest). I met Mr. MandeeFoFandee in June 2007, and instead of moving him into a house that I couldn't really afford to begin with, we opted to move into my dad's old house together and start fresh with a cheaper rent. my dad took over the mortgage to the house we purchased together and rented it out so. that happened. turns out, that house was a piece of doo doo and the cost of oil in the winter easily surpassed what the other mortgage would have cost us. that's a whole other story. sooooo after we got hitched, we decided to move back into the house I owned with my father, but only after doing LOTS of renovations, which started while we were on our honeymoon and lasted about 2 months. we hired a company to perform all the renos, which I'll try to outline here to the best of my ability...
the incredibly extensive renovations included: leveling out the floors on the main level to install hardwood flooring (laminate, not the real stuff... we ain't rich), move the wall between living room and master bedroom in order to expand size of MB, remove sagging ceiling from above master bedroom and install new one, remove existing bathroom and move to another space in the house (which means all new plumbing and all that jazz), turn old bathroom into a full closet, install door that will lead to the garage from inside the house, remove old rounded archways separating living room and entryway and install squared off doorway, sand gross popcorn like texture from all existing walls...
phew. *wipes sweat off forehead* I think that's it. so yeah, we definitely hired someone to do all this work for us, which amounted to roughly $20k. goodbye savings account that I've been contributing to weekly for 4 years. ouch.
so the renovations were finished and we decided to move forward with the refinancing, which would remove my dad's name from the title and put Mr. MandeeFoFandee's name on it. perfecto. the appraisal went smoothly, as well as the settlement. right before Christmas, we became homeowners together.
now... onto to the point of this post...
the only thing we did not touch in the house was our kitchen, and that was hard for me to put aside, because my kitchen is... how you say... fugs. completely fugs. we just didn't have the funds to gut the entire space, so we opted for working on it at a later time, taking the "little bit at a time" approach. the space is weird in itself before you add in the horrible laminate tile and old fashioned cabinets. it's long and rectangular, kitchen all the way smooshed in the left end (if you're facing the kitchen from the entryway)... and a whole lotta empty space on the other end. it will become a dining room eventually. there's not much cabinet/countertop space at all, and we're stuck with white appliances until we can afford black/stainless ones. here's a little drawing I whipped up in Paint just for reference.
we literally do NOT have enough space for a microwave to sit permanently on our counter tops, therefore we certainly don't have space for anything bigger than a toaster and an electric can opener.
we do, however, own an awesome baker's rack that I inherited from an old roommate who was moving across the country and had no use for it anymore. I love that thing - it has followed us from one house, to this one, to my dad's old house, and now back to this one. it is currently placed across from the stove and houses our microwave, KA Stand Mixer, and my recipe box on the top shelf. underneath, it holds boxes of coffee pods, cat food, container of kitty litter, and some other random crap. it looks like this one:
after moving into this house and finally gaining possession of all our wedding gifts (which graciously included lots of new appliances...), we realized we reaaaally don't have the space for all that stuff. I was tired of seeing my KA Blender, Calphalon toast oven, Keurig single cup coffee maker, griddle, frydaddy, and new mixing bowls in their boxes, just whispering for me to open them.
my solution? well shit, since the baker's rack I already own is so awesome for storage, why don't I just buy one that's identical to it? a little clicky clicky over on Amazon, and $74.00 later (not including shipping), I had the saaaame exact microwave stand en route to mi casa.
I was so excited when it arrived. I was so excited to tear open the boxes that contained our lovely appliances and place them in their new, show-me-off-and-display-me, comfortable homes. during one of our snowed-in weekends (pretty sad that I can't remember which one it was, since there have been SO MANY), we decided to put it together. Houston, we have a problem. the box was missing one little piece (which may or may not have resulted from the cats playing with every.little.thing. that was pulled out of the box... just sayin) - some metal piece that screws into the rod of the top shelf. I don't know the correct terminology, but apparently it was important, because it was enough to make Mr. MandeeFoFandee curse at the cats for being "cats" and get all pissy.
I eloquently said, "fuck this noise," and decided to move the shelves into the kitchen sans top shelf, because I need those lower shelves, and I needed them yesterday. and to my disappointment, the new furniture was a tad smaller than the old one... in width, height, and length. oh well, it works for now! I opened all our new appliances, shuffled some things around from the old rack, and got to taking pictures of our new (and might I add, very space saving) kitchen storage.
behold - the double baker's rack storage system:
the new rack. please don't mind our hideous floors.top shelf: coffee maker and toaster oven
middle shelf: boxes of coffee pods and extra ziploc bags
bottom shelf: KA blender, frydaddy, crockpot
top of the shelf = two of my fave cooking tools. 
the two racks together in our kitchen. I haven't finished with finding the exact right spot for everything, but it's a lot better than it was before... trust me on this.old rack contains:
top shelf: microwave, KA stand mixer, recipe box, plastic cups, paper plates
middle shelf: Mr Coffee Iced Tea maker, old toaster, cat food, and litter container
bottom shelf: mixing bowls, hand mixer, paper towels, tissues, and two bottles of blueberry Pucker
hello, my pretty. now we have plenty of space in our pots and pans cabinet, where I can actually store things in an organized fashion, instead of shoving everything into the lower cabinet and subsequently shutting the door quickly as to not create an avalanche of Calphalon metals. I'm a little peeved that they're different sizes, but I still love the way the look and how functional they are. the first rack actually has plugs on the top of the middle shelf, so we can use the appliances right where they sit instead of having to move them to the counter.
so that's my first house post. I can't wait to post more. ;)
sorry in advance, but because of yet another winter weather warning, I will probably be blogging (aka bitching) about the next snow storm that is supposed to hit us tomorrow afternoon. these are times when I think... "hmmm... know where it never snows? Hawaii. we should move there."
I have big dreams, folks. big dreams.
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