Kitchen Storage Project

Yesterday Jan and I celebrated 17 years of marriage. Yes, our anniversary is on Valentine's Day. Our wedding day was Jan's choice; he is a hopeless romantic. Even sang a love song to me (and everyone who was there) at our reception, and he is not a professional singer. I cringed and was deeply touched at the same time, if you know what I mean. Today, midway through February, we're enjoying another beautiful, sunny, blue-sky day. It's still cold at night, but the days are getting up to about 60F. I'm opening the ceiling vents during the day, and the unfilmed window over the kitchen sink. I'm also realizing our time here will come to an end all too soon, and it won't be long before it's time to hitch up.

Jan went gold panning again, for the second day in a row. We're almost giddy with the beautiful weather. And I worked on another house project. I love projects in the trailer. By definition, they're small, so the materials outlay isn't nearly what it is in a stationary house. (Unless you need a new appliance; those prices will make you cringe. Fellow across the way needs a new fridge in his unit: $1300.)

Friends and family who are reading this blog to find out what wonderful adventures we're having are probably not fascinated by our "trailer improvement" stories, but I know from personal experience that other RVers, and those who aspire to be, find them interesting. So if you were hoping for an exciting travel story, I forgive you for tuning out now.

I long ago got rid of the folding metal range top cover that came with the trailer; it was a total nuisance. I had my eye on a wooden cutting board stove cover that Camping World had, but it was quite expensive. I found a nice bamboo cutting board of the right size at Ross for $11, but needed to be able to easily move it back and forth between counter and stove without rearranging a lot of stuff, which meant making counter space available for it.

Meanwhile, there was this wasted space beside the stove hood that just niggled at me.

I was thinking a spice rack, but they're expensive. Then, while trolling the aisles at Home Depot (I find solutions to so many problems that way), I found this shelf.

Before I bought the shelf, I went home and made a newspaper pattern of the shelf and tried it out for size and decided it was a go. Yes! Back to Home Depot for the shelf and a front ledge piece for the spice shelf (already had wood for the shelf itself).

I used Polyshades, from Minwax, which we had on board in our tool kit, to stain and seal the pieces. Here's how they turned out.

The shelf allows me to access the cutting board without moving things around. I keep a grip pad under the cutting board so it doesn't slide. By the way, the utensil holder is another "trolling" find. I had been looking for a good-looking, lightweight utensil holder and found this black metal mesh oversize pencil holder at Staples. It even came with a nonskid bottom!

How I treasure this space to the right of the stove. Most RVs just seem to butt the stove up next to the fridge, with no counter space there. Here's the stove transformed into more counter space.

I'm very pleased with my day's project.

By the way, I love the magnetic knife rack you see behind the stove. I had to search quite a while to find a shorter one; most of them are too long for the space. It holds the knives very well during travel. The assortment you see is perfect for our needs: chef knife, paring knife, offset blade serrated knife, boning knife, corkscrew, carbon steel blade (not stainless steel; they don't stay sharp for long) vegetable peeler. There's a sharpening steel in the cupboard.