Opening Up Our Cooking Space

When we first saw the kitchen at the open house for our new home, we thought it was in decent shape. There is a gas stove (which I had never cooked on before; I love it!), a dishwasher and large refrigerator.  The cabinets are pretty basic, but I like that because we can refinish them or paint them and make them “our own” someday.  Here is a small photo (taken from my iPhone, sorry for the poor quality) to give you an idea of our first look at the kitchen:

As you can see in the above photo, there was also a working microwave, stacked on top of the stove using a metal riser of some kind, almost  like it was supposed to look like the microwave was built into the cabinets / stove top.  It was our plan all along to remove that riser - just looked flimsy, old and cluttered.
So, one night when Kyle and I were getting ready for bed (this was probably at about week 2 of us living in the new house), I decided it was time for the riser to go. It was starting to drive me nuts as an extra item to keep clean when we cooked.

I thought the riser would have been bolted or screwed somehow into our stove, but to my surprise, it lifted right off!  How easy is that?!  So, the following weekend we put it in a pile for one of our trips to the dump, and off it went.  Now, we have an area above the stove that is much more open and gives us more space when we cook.  Someday we’ll probably add a hood for better ventilation, but for now this works for us (especially since there is a window nearby if we need some extra air).

Since the riser was removed and the microwave was moved to our counter top on the other side of the kitchen, we had a little nook that looked like it needed something – maybe some artwork?

In came a print made by Cori Dantini, which I absolutely LOVE! It’s one of my favorite pieces of art in the house, which I got at a WSU Craft Fair. The print is a woman with a basket of vegetables, which is fitting since it's in the kitchen. Check out her art for sale here.

Have you guys done any projects recently that turned out to be surprisingly easy?  Any quick fixes or fun craft projects that you whipped up in no time?  Anything you've been dying to fix, and you finally did the project in the late night hours (which is becoming a trend for me!)?