She Shoots — She Scores!!!

In honor of the kick off of March Madness I just had to go with the basketball reference for the title of this post. We're big NCAA basketball fans here - but you know what I love most about the tournament this year... besides of course that Syracuse being a #1 seed has Bear very happy...

Once the tournament is over:

We start remodeling our kitchen!!!

Yahoo!!!

Now, this isn't a five figure remodel... We're trying to do it for 3 figures. We're going to try and remodel the kitchen for under $1000. We have our work cut out for us. Here are our before pictures:

Problem #1 - Not enough storage. We tried solving that a few years ago with that cart you see in the last picture. It didn't go far enough.

Solution #1 - See this area here:

Look to the left of the sliders - we've got an almost 8-9 foot wall there with plenty of room for cabinets. So about a month ago I started combing craigslist and the 2 local ReStores for cabinets that would as close as possible match what we've currently got. Well first, I looked at Lowes where they still sell the cabinets we have... to get 3 base cabinets, almost $700.

I can't go blowing the budget on the first problem, so that is when I started combing craigslist and the local ReStores. I found one set of 3 cabinets that was close, $180 for the set. Not bad.

But then, one night while I couldn't sleep I was cruising craigslist and found a set of 3 base cabinets - the exact cabinets that we have for $100!!! It took all my will power not to call the guy right then and there, but I didn't think the seller would appreciate my call at 2:30am. So I waited, not so patiently I might add for a return email.

After much negotiating - I got them. Well, I almost got them. Turns out he didn't want to sell the 3rd cabinet... grrrr... thankfully, I talked him into selling me the 3rd on after he stripped it for the doors, hinges and drawers. (He has rental properties with these cabinets and wanted the parts.)

Take a look:

The plan is to paint them white, all of them, old and new-old.

Oh and that cabinet with no drawers or doors, I've got big plans for it.

Stay tuned.