Trones in the Kitchen

Last time when I shared the Lightening up the Kitchen post, I shared this picture below of where the refrigerator is placed but I left out the after pictures from this view.

We switched out the old refrigerator that came with the house with a stainless steel one and we added a little floating recycling center on the wall to make it more functional.  The door-less cabinet is still in the same state and I know now it looks a little off  and the fridge isn't as close to the wall as it should be because of the baseboard heater.  I really feel like the fridge should be moved to face the other side of the kitchen for a better flow between work stations.  If we do that we would have to move the cabinet on top and replace the trim, it seems simple but there's a lot more work involved that we don't have time for right now.  Instead we focused on making it more functional for the time being.

To keep the recycling at bay we utilize the Ikea Trones.  I know their description says they are for shoes but when I saw them I thought they would be great for recycling and I was right, they are.  Ours are black so they look good with the bottom black cabinets but they come in different colors.  I styled these pictures for this post but usually I have a bunch of crap on the tops of the trones.  I really want to keep the tops clear so I plan to add a wood top to them to make them more decorative and custom.  I'm hoping this will encourage me to keep the top clean and pretty.

I made the chalkboard frame on the wall with simple 1x2's and a cheap backer board panel painted with chalkboard paint.  I wanted it to look a bit rustic and old so I painted and distressed the frame, drilled holes for the twine and found that big black bracket in the basement and thought it would look cool if I used it to hang the chalkboard from.  It is another functional piece for the kitchen to write grocery list, reminders etc...The old wooden bowls I bought from a thrift store.  I bought some saw tooth hangers from the hardware store and nailed them to the back of the bowls to hang them on the wall.  I have always had a calendar in the kitchen no matter where we live it's just a habit to write things on it like appointments, days off, vacations and other important events.  It is very handy for our family.

As you can see our kitchen is open to the dining room.  I know some people prefer closed off dining rooms but I really like it this way, in fact I wish the the kitchen was open into the living room too but that's just not the case.  We would love to some day open these rooms up in to each other but that seems like a project outside of our DIY-able knowledge and budget so for now we will work with this layout.  Still something to consider for the future.

For now we are enjoying slowly making improvements and making the house more functional for our family's needs.  We recycle a ton in our house everyday and having these recycle bins in the kitchen where most of the action happens is very convenient for us.  They hold a lot and are easy to remove and carry them outside to the recycling cans on waste pick up day.  Their simple lines make them an attractive solution and also makes them very easy to wipe clean.  Needless to say we love our recycling center.  

                   

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