Happy holidays everyone!

This little kitchen is done!

Remember this? The original kitchen when we moved in.

This was when the hutch still lived in there (yes this is that nice looking white hutch I blogged about recently)

The second half of the makeover is now finished. After changing the bench top on the sink side and getting rid of a cupboard at the end and replacing it with a set of drawers the first half was completed. (forgot to mention the new sink with 1 1/2 basins, loooove the extra 1/2 basin)

And now the cupboards for the other side are in and the bench top is on! It was fairly easy to put together once we'd done the first set of drawers. We didn't get the flatpax ones from Bunnings for these drawers (the new drawers under the other bench were from Bunnings and were very easy to put together). These new ones were chosen mainly for the under bench microwave configuration as the flatpax ones didn't have that.

If that wasn't a factor I would have preferred to go with the Bunnings ones, they had far better instructions and were very easy compared with the others. But we figured it out in the end and it's all done! Now there is heaps of space to fit everything and it's great to have the microwave not taking up bench space yet being so handy (as opposed to being in the laundry)

Here's a nifty idea for all you beachy people out there, I've found a way to bring the beach into the kitchen! Get yourselves some glass coffee jars with the lids that have a bit of space in them (I think they might be moccona ones, mine were pinched from mum's house)

After cleaning the jar and soaking the label off, remove the plastic seal from the lid. They should pop right off, and fill the lid up with some little shells, putting the plastic seal thing back on of course to hold them in there.

And then fill the jars up with your choice of product! I imagine you could do this with all different size jars and have other things besides tea and coffee products in them. I've seen them at the op shops so non coffee drinkers could get one from there instead.

And this is a little idea for keeping things easily accessible yet looking okay as well.

I found this woven tray at spotlight (I think) and thought it would be good to keep all the bits and pieces contained in one area.

We have the phone there as the wall plug is just below the bench and other stuff just ended up next to it as well. So the tray now is home to the phone, some notebooks, my sunnies, a bowl of pens and pencils and a key bowl. I have managed to get everyone (mostly) to put the keys in their home so we never have to look for them.

And it's handy to never have to scramble around for a pen when you need one.

So there you go, a nice bit of extra bench space that has heaps of storage underneath and it somehow manages to make the room look bigger!