May 11th, 2010

The Perfect Mother’s Day Present (for me.)

My kitchen is tiny; nice, but tiny. It’s a pretty space, with high end cabinets and granite counter tops (thanks Landlord.) But the small room, non-existent counter space, and very limited storage drives me totally bat shit crazy. Last year we removed the door that separated the kitchen from the basement – I have no idea why it was there to begin with – and tossed up an Ikea shelf to add some storage space to the room. The shelf was ill fitted to the space, and caused the garbage can to hang halfway over the door jam. Finding a place to put the recycling bin was an even bigger challenge, so I bought a laundry basket and shoved it (and I really mean shoved it) into the bottom shelf. The mess looked like this:

Considering that we go in and out of this door, both to get to the garage, and to go downstairs to the playroom, several times a day, you can see how having a garbage can in the way would be crazy-making. The food piled and shoved into containers was an even bigger eye sore. Now that I’m overhauling my entire family’s diet, I’ve been trying to stock the kitchen with all the things that a person needs to make real food. One bag of whole wheat flour really pushed our over-filled cabinets beyond the limit, and I started to feel an aneurysm coming on. I had to get more storage space, and make this wire shelf monstrosity go far, far away.

So, last week I called my dad up (a union roofer with very handy hands) and asked him if he would help me build a nice custom shelf into this space. I wanted something with plenty of shelving, that would be high enough off the ground to fit a matching recycling bin and garbage can side by side underneath it. And doors. I wanted doors. Allowing anything to sit at toddler level is just inviting trouble. Every time I went to the bathroom or got on the phone, Julesy would have pulled down everything he could reach and crushed Gorilla Munch into the floor, so doors were an absolute must.

Dad happily agreed to help me build the cabinet, and wanted to buy everything for me as a birthday/Mother’s day present. Then, he decided that instead of having us spend all the time building something, he would just purchase real cabinets that would fit the space, along with matching garbage cans to fit nicely underneath. On Mother’s Day morning, he showed up with the goods, and by the time lunch came around, I had this:

This beautiful wonder fits all the extra food I had no place to shove before. As you can see, I also got my nice matching recycling and garbage bins below – and Look! Look! They aren’t covering up the door! I added a paper towel holder to the side, which freed up even more counter space. Doesn’t the whole room just look better?

I know it seems crazy, but cabinetry is one of THE best Mother’s Day presents I’ve ever been given. After all, these cabinets aren’t really cabinets – they’re a stress reliever. Now I don’t have to fumble with a laundry basket full of recycling, or overfilled cabinets just waiting to drop a jar on my head. What my dad really gave me was piece of mind – something totally intangible – which just happened to cost him about $150 at Lowes.

What did you get for Mother’s Day? Did somebody make you feel good or ease some of your stress? I certainly hope so. We all deserve it.

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