Our kitchen is really small, so Karren and I made some shelves for our spices to add a little more storage space. And some color. :)
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| The problem |
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| Six coats of paint: 2 primer, 3 red, 1 clear finish |
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| How to dry paint when you don't have a garage |
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| The solution |
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| We had to stealthily drill holes in the wall during quiet time at our apartments. Well, somewhat stealthily. |
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| Ta-da! |
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| Karren helped. It was a team project. I'm just in the pictures to get the credit. |
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Oooooh! Shiny!
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Just in case you want to get some cool shelves like ours, here's a handy guide to how to make and mount shelves:
- Buy oak boards, angle brackets, and screws at Lowe's in California.
- Fly them to Portland so you can use your dad's table saw, drill press, and random orbit sander.
- Fly them back to California.
- Figure out how to covertly paint and dry them without arousing the suspicions of the landlord or turning your carpet red.
- Paint them with primer. Let them dry in your living room.
- Sand.
- Paint them with primer. Let them dry in your living room.
- Sand.
- Paint them with red paint. Let them dry in your outside storage unit.
- Sand.
- Paint them with red paint. Let them dry in the shower.
- Sand.
- Paint them with red paint. (back to the living room)
- DON'T SAND! It will ruin the shinys!
- Paint them with water-based satin polyurethane (to prevent spices from sticking to the tacky oil-based paint).
- Attach the mounting hardware to the shelves.
- Drill holes in your wall.
- Buy drywall anchors and install them in the holes.
- Notice that the wall in your kitchen is not straight.
- Buy washers to fill the gap between the angle brackets and the wall (see previous item).
- Screw the shelves into the wall.
- Beautifully arrange your spice collection on the shelves, taking into account size, color, container type, spice family, and lexicographic order.
- Run around like it's Christmas, high-fiving everyone in the apartment (i.e. your wife).
