Amazing! You are blessed to have such a dad in your life.

Very crafty indeed! You'll be smiling a lot in your new kitchen every time you use one of your wonderful additions. :)

great projects! the board holder looks the easiest - I think I could do that!

you did a great job on yours.

Love the cutting board holder. I saved all the larger scraps my carpenter made. I'm going check if I have enough to create one of these on the prep sink cabinet door. Thanks for sharing! Your kitchen looks likes it coming along and will be a joyous space when it is complete.

love your toe kicks! It's coming along nicely, your dad is doing a great job : )

Yay for crafty dads! Mine made us a cherry prep sink cover so that we can use it as counter space when we don't need the sink.

Lookin' good, and congrats on the toe kick drawers, very well done. It's a lovely open space.

I haven't been following your kitchen I'm afraid, but I think I should start. So craftily crafty! I approve! And I'm a little bit inspired to get crafty myself.

I love seeing smart things like this. It is looking nice and I bet the finished kitchen will be a "wow"!

Someone after my own heart!

I am going to build my own toe kick drawers.
I am building everything, or at least retrofitting! :)

Lovely to see.

you are too cool!

Thanks, all!

Circuspeanut--oooh, what a lovely idea. My parents have a custom-built trash pullout (huge! It uses those giant black bags) with a small cutout above in the granite, which is covered by a custom cutting board. I think your sink-cover ties with that as my most coveted kitchen doohickeys.

Fori--I just started posting to the forum, so there hasn't really been anything to follow until now! Now that I'm here, I'm hooked, of course. ;-)

CEFreeman--I'd love to see your toe kick drawers! Mine don't use all the available space, but hey, they only took about 20 minutes and they make me happy. I'm a bit of a woodworking diletante, I'm afraid; I know just enough to think I can do far more than I really can. ;-) I greatly admire people with real building and woodworking skill, and I am so thankful to have a father who can (and generously does) step in and lend a hand when it gets a little over my head.

I don't have a picture of today's efforts yet, but it involved another trip to ikea and a couple of these:

Our cabinets are that same dark chocolate color inside and out. At first I thought, "How lovely, so nicely finished!" And then I put the first one on the wall. The base cabinet drawers get plenty of light shining in, but the wall cabinets are dark caves of mystery. In the daytime, the bright light shining through the windows leaves the dark cabinet in stark contrast and impossible to see. When it's dark outside, it's just all dark. Enter the sensor-activated Ikea light. I'm happy to report that these ikea battery operated Dioder LED lights work brilliantly in cabinets as well as drawers. The only problem is that now you can really see all the spots on my glasses. ;-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Dioder battery operated drawer light

How resourceful! And great looking cabinets. Do you have a picture of your parents trash/cutting board area? I was wondering about something like that.

Why am I not able to see any pics? I'm dying to check out the toekick drawers!

Legallin--I'll be sure to take a picture the next time I'm at my parents' house. We're enthusiastic bakers in my family (my mother is actually a pastry chef), and it is SO nice to be able to scrape the bench clean so easily!

Deedles--no idea why you're not having luck with the images! I'll link to the smugmug gallery where you can find them.

Here are the re-purposed Ikea drawer lights in action:

And the weekend's project while husband and older daughter were off on an Indian Princesses camping trip, refinishing the old table. It wasn't in the best condition when we bought it on Craigslist 4 years ago, and the intervening years of crafts and kid spills haven't helped. And I DESPISED those grooves that caught every crumb and grain of rice and glimmer of glitter. I filled it in with wood putty, sanded the whole thing down, and used some stain we had left over from building the pergola by the outdoor kitchen. Much better!

Old finish:

New:

Here is a link that might be useful: Mod's Kitchen Reno Gallery