Chez Larsson

Organizing Under the Kitchen Sink

 

Above things have been fine.

 

Before

Below is a different story.

When we moved in ten years ago I quickly painted the insides of all kitchen cabinets including under the kitchen sink. At some point there was a narrow inset shelf to the left which had been torn out and I just left the gap as is for the longest time. Until a few weeks ago when I decided I needed to freshen things up in there.

   

A fresh lick of paint, a strip of wood to cover the gap, new adhesive shelf liner and the originally black newspaper recycling thingy spray painted white. Aaaaaahhh!

 

I screwed white L-hooks into the strip of wood to hold the kitty litter scoop and the dish brush used for cleaning the litter box (marked accordingly)

 

On the inside of the cabinet door I mounted two trash bins. The left one has a lid and in it we throw whatever will eventually go into the outdoor composting bin. The right one is lidless and that's where the non-recyclables go.

Now it's pure joy to open the door to what used to be such an eyesore.

In the Press

 

Wohoo! Check this out! Chez Larsson is mentioned  in the March issue of Singapore Home & Decor magazine! Thank you Ruth! And my friend Eva is on the same page! Lots of exclamation marks!

Sliding Doors How-To

 

Thessa e-mail me and asked if I could show how we built the orange wardrobe and how the sliding door are hung. Sure, no problem!

The shelving system inside is simply one similar to the Elfa system. It's mounted to the back wall and the sliding doors are separate, they hang from the ceiling on a track that you buy at a specialty hardware store. We got ours from a local store called Theofils Beslag. Our wardrobe spans an entire wall so we measured the wall and asked the Theofils to cut the track to that lenght. We chose three doors for our 2.4 meter / 8 ft wall. Each door is 84 cm/33" wide so they overlap slightly when closed.

 

For each door you need to get 2 pcs of special hardware that is sunk and screwn into the back of the board you are using. We used 18mm /3/4" MDF for ours. The  hardware is really simple to install as long you have the right size drill bit. At the top of the hardware are the little wheels that roll on the track (not visible in this shot). 

 

This is what the track looks like from below. On the right track you can spot a metal thing infront of the oblong thing. That's a stoppers it prevents the door from opening itself up if you have a somewhat sloping ceiling as we do.

Hanging the doors is so easy once you have installed the track. The installation of the track is simply a matter of using the correct screws and plugs for your ceiling, your hardware store can help you there. When the track is up and the doors have the hardware on you just pop the wheels onto the tracks and let them hang down. MDF is pretty heavy in these sizes but if you use the right track for the weight of your boards you'll be fine. Along with the hardware came some little floor track bits, just little penny sized 15 mm /1/2" tall things that you can sink into your floor to prevent the doors from swaying in and out. We didn't want to drill into our floors so our doors just hang freely.

 

We added a piece of wood in front of the track so it's not visible from the front. The height of the track is 4.5 cm / 1 3/4" and the wood we used is 8 cm / 3 1/4" which also hides the hardware which would otherwise be seen from the front above the MDF. This piece of wood was screwn into the ceiling too. 

The wardrobe doors have been up a couple of years and we've had no problems whatsoever besides from the fact that I'm bored with the orange trellis pattern and will put wallpaper on them soon. If you on the other hand like the trellis pattern you can find a painting tutorial here.

Screw Organizing!

 

Did you think I'd gone mad? Ha! Still loving every minute of it!

Since we were on the subject of jars yesterday I'm showing you another way to re-purpose them today.

 

We are avid peanut butter eaters in this family, Wille has some for breakfast on his sandwich in the mornings, Martin eats some in his sleep at night (he's a regular sleep walker) and I grew up on the stuff in the 70's. Needless to say we have plenty of Skippy jars. Nowadays Skippy comes in glass jars but in the days when it came in plastic ones we saved them for use in the garage/workshop.

 

The lids are screwed into the wooden shelf that sits above the work top and then you simply fill your jars with whatever small you need storing and screw the jar onto the mounted lid. Out of the way and pretty organized. Gotta love that!

Jarring facts

 

I'm a huge believer in repurposing containers as you have probably all understood by now.

Like I've said before I'm one of those people who chooses food stuffs based on if the box looks nice or if the container is good looking. I get kicks out of clear or milky white with white lids, no print. If I find a good one I'll buy what ever comes with it until I have a good set.

A while ago I was asked if I also keep glass jars. Yes! But again, not every jar, just the nice looking ones. I like Nutella (The jar that is. Well actually I like the Nutella itself too...) with it's white lid, bit upset with the still visible logo on top but I've decided I can live with it. I like the skinny jars which come with olives too, and any jars with glass lids and all mason jars.

Jars with printed lids don't make it into the basement pantry but I do like the occasional solid colored one. I always remove the labels right away, I can't stand storing them with the labels still on. Most of the time they come off when soaking them in water and sometimes I use a glue remover to get the  glue residue off. I got a tip in a comment on another post about using the heat of a hairdryer to help peel off the labels. Haven't had a chance to try that method yet, but it sounds great.

So what are the jars (and bottles) used for? Most of the jars I reuse as jam jars. We have one plum tree, one gooseberry bush and a couple of currant bushes in the garden. I've made jam every year since we moved in and by now I know how many jars are needed over the jamming season so that's the amount of jars I keep and store. I keep only a couple or so of nice looking bottles. I'm thinking maybe we'll do our own vinegar one day and if then we'll have the bottles for it.

So, did you guys have a nice weekend? Martin and Wille were away snowboarding (schools are out this week) and on Saturday I had a visit by a photographer and stylist who are putting together an article about our home for a magazine. Very talented people and it was really fun seeing their take on the rooms I've shot so many times myself. Can't wait to see it in print. Can definitely wait to see the photo they took of me though. Yikes. I'm so extremely uncomfortable in front of the camera. Are you ok with having your photo taken? I so need to learn...