My Kitchen

I am renting a little one bedroom apartment. And, I mean SMALL. However, It is a great area of town. I live alone- so it is safe (way more important than being a big space.  My bedroom is a pretty decent size, but the kitchen is small.

I hate doing dishes. I grew up with a dish washer. I have NEVER lived without one- except in college when I ate in the cafeteria anyway. So, my tiny kitchen and limited space makes the dishes even worse.

I did manage to get some decent cute storage going on though- which makes it a little easier to do dishes.

Can you tell I love owls?

While I was in college, I bought a knife block from Ikea. However, a couple days ago I felt like the knife block needed some TLC. So I mod podged some paper on it and covered the ugly edging with some twine. 

Now I am ready to tackle hanging some pictures in the living room!

What has been going on?

I have been up to a number of crafty things lately.

I spent a ton of time getting a vintage door knob, which I got at ReStore, a little less rusty. I spent the most time getting the back plate cleaned off. For some reason the rust was a lot easier to get off this part than the actual knob- so you can get an idea of how bad they were before I cleaned them off at all.

I also kept the inside of the door knob mechanism because I thought that was pretty cool too. Ignore the lack of spray paint inside the numbered pots. I had about 100 different ideas of what I was going to do with these before I decided on the numbers. And, that was after I ran out of spray paint, since I was planning on sanding some of it off the outside originally anyway. 

I love how these look so far. The little bit of rust on the door mechanism I find charming. It surely isn't for everyone.

For those of you who may be wondering how I removed the rust from all the different parts of the door knob- here is what I tried. 1. I tried vinegar and salt. I always used distilled vinegar, but I did try different types of salt ( including kosher, sea salt, and just run of the mill table salt. 2. I also tried ketchup. I tried this because my mom suggested it. It worked to some degree- but it was harder to rub and frankly, it was a little gross.  3. I tried steel wool. I only used that on the back plates. It was a last resort. 

I bought a pack of stencils to do the numbered pots. I wanted to make a sign. However, I was trying to budget money and didn't want to spend money on wood. Luckily, my boyfriend let me use scrap wood from re-doing his house. I selected this pointed one for my sign. I roughed the letters up after painting them with a block sander. 

I also made this one for my boyfriend. It is above the pantry door in the kitchen. 

Happy Monday!