Kitchen Renovation: The Drawer Handle Saga

So, as I said the other day we got all the handles put on the cabinet doors, but not yet for the drawers.  Why? Well, thanks for asking.  Reason #1: The screws supplied in the little bag with the handle... were too short.  So, B's dad drilled the appropriate holes for us, and we were just one quick stop at Lowe's away from having handles!

That night we headed out to make the other necessary returns (which came to like $200 - sahweet!), and to grab some baseboard and the screws for the handle.  A nice guy in the screw department (I'm sure there's a better name for it than that...) who looked about 16, walked us over to the handle section where they have a handy-dandy display of knob screws people usually buy when the ones supplied with the hardware are too short. Score! (Or eeeaaaasy peasey as the captain of our cruise earlier this year would say - over the loudspeaker - while we were stumbling through the hall because of the larger than normal waves.)

We excitedly (maybe that's an exaggeration) came home to install the handles.  Reason #2: It took about 5 seconds for B to realize that yes, they're actually still too short.  Right.  Well, at least Lowe's is just down the street, and we had errands to run the next day anyway.  Next morning we dropped B's truck off early for some maintenance and swung by Lowe's again.  We returned the previous screws (cause hey, its $5) and made our way over to the screw department and the same young man-boy was there.  We let him know they were too short and he helped us find longer ones.  Sweet.

Long day of shopping (and new tires on BOTH cars - yea, sure cleaned out the credit we got on our returns) later, and we arrive home, again excitedly(!), to get those silly handles attached.  Well, the screws were plenty long in fact, Reason #3: They were too long.  We also realized that we had returned the "wrong" handle earlier - one of them was a slightly different color.  Lucky for us, some friends wanted to go to dinner at a restaurant right next to Lowe's, so we finished our Saturday night date passing through the self checkout at Lowe's one last time, with spacers for the screws and a handle of the correct color/finish.

Phew.  So here we go.  The before, can you find the drill holes?

B workin' hard to get them just right:

And of course, the finished products:

I wasn't sure on the whole "in the middle of the drawer thing" for the handles, but it's grown on me, and I like it, even if it means bending down that extra 2 inches to open the drawer.

Even the goofy skinny cabinet I still haven't decided what to do with got a cute little brushed nickle handle:

And probably my favorite thing that happened when B's dad came up last week, was the attaching of the dishwasher to the counter.  This was a huge reason as to why I wanted a new kitchen in the first place (small problem, big solution.)  So here's the old setup, versus the new one.

It is UNDER the counter, and attached. Every time I open it, it doesn't threaten to topple over on me.  Nor is it the world's greatest crumb catcher anymore.  *AWESOME*  It's flush with the cabinets, so a little under the counter, meaning it doesn't stick out and get in the way of my life. So I *love* it.

Now, the dilemma came on how to attach it, since we weren't exactly going to drill into the granite, cause I can't imagine that would end well.  One idea was to use a strong adhesive to attach the wood piece, and then screw the dishwasher into that.  Probably would have worked just fine.  He ended up screwing the wood piece into the cabinet on one side and the filler that was on the other.  Works just fine as well.  Then of course, he screwed the dishwasher into the piece of wood. 

Really all we have left at this point is having the cabinet doors straightened, and the pendant lights installed, so I'm thinking a full before and after might be in order soon?  We shall see :)

Anyway, let's end on an adorable note, with M all cuddled up in her blanket watching TV.