DIY Open Shelving

So, many of you may know, especially if you have spoken to me locally or followed along for awhile that I have a plan for our kitchen. It is the cutest little kitchen, just big enough and has a lot more space than I think most people realize... I checked off one of the things on my to do list before I left on vacation. Open shelving of course! I'm searching for the correct photo of this wall we have near this bank of cabinets. They left it open I'm assuming because they thought it might be crowded if they did add a full wall... but my decision was that I wanted something to display my dishes, towels and anything else for the kitchen. For some reason I cannot upload the BEFORE photos so I will add them later.. for y'all and hopefully you will check back!

I opted for these iron brackets from Hobby Lobby.  They are the smaller version and were $3.50 each after receiving 50% each since they were on sale. I already had the wood in the garage so that was FREE... gotta love when that happens! Total, this project cost me less than $25.00 since I had most of the supplies already on hand including the drill, anchors and screws, etc.

I'm really loving how much they break up this wall. I plan to do white dishes stacked and any other items that may be functional for me to have open. I simply measured how far I wanted the brackets to be and measured how long I wanted each shelf to be. I marked a dot where I needed to drill each hole for each bracket and got to work! This project probably took me about an hour to fully complete.

I did opt to purchase the smaller version of our old canisters for this house. They are from Walmart and I believe are under $10 each. We also installed puck under cabinet lighting. It really looks great at night and even has a remote with a dimmer! The lights are all LED and they are awesome!

I quickly added some layers to these shelves just to give y'all an idea of what you can use in open shelving, virtually anything! Like I said before, I will do my white dishes and well as linens and probably some fresh fruit weekly. I love the warmth of the stained wood tops with the black brackets!

Over all I am very satisfied with the look! Next up will be painting our kitchen cabinets. I am excited about the progress of this room and hope that y'all like this as well. If you like any of the images, feel free to hover over your favorites and pin them to your Pinterest accounts.

DIY: Under sink tile and how to keep it clean & organized!

If you're anything like me, you're OCD, stress way too much and constantly worry about everything. Don't be like me.

With that being said, I am also an organizational freak. I just love it. I know, freak right? It bothers me every time we both under bathroom and kitchen sinks where you keep your cleaning supplies, your liquids and soaps, etc... when they LEAK and get all over your nice, clean bottom of your cabinet. So, while browsing through Pinterest one day, I came across the idea to use tile under your kitchen cabinet. Brilliant. And I knew just the tile that would be CHEAP and easy to install. 

I wanted the whole organization thing to be cheap in general, especially for such a small area. Totaling just under $20, I think I hit the nail on the head with this one.

Enter Lowes Home Improvement and their peel and stick tiles that are meant to look a lot like marble. Except they are super light and have sticky backs. At just over $1.00 a piece, I only need 6 for this project and somehow had one left over. But this may not be the case for everyone. We also got an extra 10% for my husbands military service, always a nice thing every time we check out. Thank you Lowes! They have a variety to choose from and choosing a darker tile probably would be the smarter route as you won't see as many messes IF you have any. I am stubborn and choose the luxurious faux marble. Yep, so what.

You can see how thin they are below so literally speaking, they do not take up much space or take away from your under cabinet storage in any way.

Here is a BEFORE shot of under the kitchen sink. The usual... the thrown in, messy look where no one looks because it doesn't matter. Yep, that cabinet. 

Ok, so what you'll need to get started with this SUPER simple project are the following:

Tape Measure

Pen/Pencil

Utility Knife, Box cutter, whatever you call it.

Calculator (Maybe.) ;-)

I started in the center and laid the first two tiles to make it easy. I only had to trim up for the top part of the back tile because I hadn't done the sides yet. All that you have to do through out the entire laying of the tiles is to just measure the length and width of the open space, measure it on the tile and mark it. Then cut it with your knife. Yes, that easy.

This whole project only took me literally 10 minutes to do and I'm already loving it! I literally can WIPE it clean now and it gives it new life. Not that it needed it because its under the sink but hey, it's the little things people. We also purchased a grocery bag holder at around $8.00 and paper towel mountable holder from Walmart for around $6.00 or $7.00, I believe. To add additional storage and de-clutter on tops of the counter tops, we mounted the paper towel rack on the inside of the cabinet door. People, this was one of the best things I've ever done. I hate things being on the counter, especially appliances and stupid paper towel things. The plastic bag holder I actually did not screw in. I used 3M strips that I already had on hand to hang it. Have I mentioned how much I love those? I use them everywhere... they are seriously life savers. Yay 3M!

Here's a peek up close. What do you think? In case you are wondering why we don't have anything under our sink, we also found a full door basket system that we installed on the inside of our linen closet door that is right near the kitchen to hold most of our cleaning supplies, trash bags, etc.

And here's a close up of the paper towel holder. If you go to any store, be sure to check out their storage solutions. I use to tend to overlook them but now, I want to add as much storage as possible to this home to fully make use of the space that we have. And I think, I hope, somewhere down the line when we sell, a buyer will appreciate all of these small, storage solutions.

Well there ya go! I'm off to bed, I can't wait to reveal to you what my friend and I came across tonight. We were so lucky to have found what we did! Goodnight!

XO,

Ally