I am super excited about this new project we’re working on… and I need your opinion! We love our kitchen, but will be the first ones to say that our cabinet and drawer space are precious commodities. So much so, that we are constantly trying to find ways to create more space and “hire them out” to do more than just store things. If you were with us this week, you saw this in action as we installed our beloved floating shelves. Read more about that project here. The other side of this harebrained scheme is that I’ve been wanting a Command Center of some sort in our kitchen, but couldn’t figure out a good way to do it that wouldn’t take up space that we don’t have.
Thankfully, Pinterest is already ahead of the curve and people have been posting great ideas that work around spacial problems like we have. Here are some Pinspirations, if you will, that are guiding the thought process behind our new project:
The first was created by blogger, Jennifer, over at Life In the Green House. The second, I found over at Young House Love. Finally, the third hails from Home With Baxter, from blogger, Jessica. Nice job award goes to all!
So the idea is this: to utilize the inside of our cabinets as a “drop zone” for notes, recipes we want to try throughout the week, shopping lists, etc. AND a space to write stuff down and maybe even get a little bit artsy… who knows where this could lead!
I only have three rules with this project:
- It would be nice to have both a chalkboard space and a bulletin board space.
- Treatments will be on the inside of the cabinets.
- Whatever we install has to be removeable. I don’t want something that would be a permanent resident in our cabinets because, as much as we love our house, we know that this is not our final destination. Who knows if a future buyer is going to want chalkboard paint all over their cabinets?
I have already bought some materials to get started with this project and have also come up with some means of installation that do not involve paint on the actual cabinets OR any kind of drilling into the wood. In short, when we decide to take them down, no one will be any wiser that there was anything there in the first place. My question for you is this… what should go where?
As you can see, we have a few inside-the-door options to work with:
Here are two other angles, just to give you a better idea of the layout:
So here is your question to ponder for the weekend: Which cabinet should get what treatment? Pretend you have three options: Cork, Chalk, or Nothing. If you have other ideas, feel free to leave those too…
Please leave a comment with your input and ideas! For example, your comment might read: #1- Chalk, #2- Cork, #3- Nothing, #4- Chalk, #5- Cork, #6- Cork. We’ll take a tally and report back the results! Of course, final vote is up to Mitch and I, but some extra input and a few more sets of eyes will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for your thoughts and have a GREAT weekend!
-Leslie
Oh, the Fun... 
I would definitely put cork in #6 and chalkboard paint in #5. I understand the concern about making it permanent – we share the same concerns over here. You can find plain cork to cut to size and hang with 3M Command strips, which would come right off. Chalkboard paint might be a little more difficult – but if you can find some cheap plastic sheeting or something, you might be able to do the same as the cork: cut, paint, and hang with Command strips. Maybe not, but hopefully that at least helps you get the problem solving juices flowing. Good luck!
Great ideas, Lauren! We bought some cork from Target that we plan to cut to size and are still working on ironing out the tweaks of some chalkboard installation… Thanks for your feedback- it is awesome to have another set of eyes assess the situation and chime in!
I second Lauren with her suggestions, but you can always mount and secure tightly, a framed picture like I did, the glass or plastic acts like a white board and you can put cute paper in the frame to give it a design. I personally wouldn’t want to always clean up chalk dust. Plus you could kind of ease your way into painting a cabinet with chalkboard paint.
That’s a really neat idea… yeah, we’ve been weighing the pros and cons about chalk mixing with what’s in our cabinets. I really like the white board idea!
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