No More Hand Washing

Installing a dishwasher has been on our list of things to do for a while now. It was one of the top 10 things to do in 2011 - but I honestly didn't think it would be the first thing we accomplished this year. But thanks to our friends Pam and Michael who decided to completely remodel their kitchen - including replace all of their existing appliances - we got a new (to us) dishwasher. They even delivered it! It didn't take us long to figure out where it needed to go. There really was only once space in the kitchen it would fit. So hubby ripped out the lower cabinets to the left of the sink. We called our favorite electricians who wired an outlet to the back of the cabinet space. The following week we had a plumber set up the water and waste line. Then we were in business. The inaugural wash was very exciting and so far it's saved us about an hour of clean up work each day.

Hubby's favorite part of home remodeling is demolition. I think if I was OK with it, he'd have blown out every wall in the house by now. So getting him a demo fix every once in a while keeps my walls in tact.

The space was about five inches wider than the dishwasher. So hubby filled the gap with old Fir boards that he tore out of basement last year. The boards have been primed and all that's left to do is finish painting and add the trim.

Right away we knew we'd need to replace the cabinet storage that we'd torn out. So we put together some metal shelving that fit the space really well. We had half of the shelving already - including the wood cutting board on top. We purchased the second set of shelves at Storables - but they wanted $100 for the wood board! So hubby's awesomely inexpensive fix was a trip to Home Depot for the EXACT board for $15. All we had to do was sand it and oil it.