When trying to convince the Hubs of what a great investment the Dream House would be, I had the bright idea of reusing the cabinets in the kitchen and butler’s pantry.  “How thrifty”, I thought, this would be a great savings!  They were in pretty good shape, some had glass fronts, all they needed was a good cleaning and a coat of paint.

All thoughts of penny pinching were dashed when out contractor commended me on my ‘admirable’ idea, however, trying to retrofit built-on-site 70+ year old cabinets into a new kitchen design would be nearly impossible and would definitely not be a money saver.  Plus, is was unknown what the condition of the cabinets would be when we started to dismantled them.  Shucks!  Guess I will need a NEW kitchen . . . .

Fast forward to the first week of demo.  The kitchen cabinets came out like a dream, much to everyone’s surprise.  The first one to come down was the only casualty and the rest came out – all in one piece!  Mind you they were about 6 foot long pieces.  They were all carefully placed in the garage until it was determined what we would do with our newest treasure.

In our current house, we have totally remodeled every portion of the house, top to bottom, inside and out.  With the exception of . . . . the garage.  The organized, painted, clean and neat garage was not to be had on York Way!  It was scheduled to be tackled last summer, was put off when it was too hot, then fall came along and the allure of the Dream House was too tempting.  Heck, why put any more money into this house when we might be moving . . . .

Back to the ‘renewable’ kitchen cabinets.  One evening my husband came home after more demo with his merry band of men, and he told me he had a surprise.  ‘A surprise, for me?’  What on earth could it be?  There was no present in hand, no bouquet of flowers . . . Hmmmm.

‘Guess what we did with some of the old kitchen cabinets?’ he asks.  I’m hoping they didn’t become kindling, as we were having an unusually cold spell.  Then he tells me the surprise . . . they placed some of the old cabinets up in the Dream House garage and the rest will be used in the basement.

How about that?!  The illusive neat and organized garage that has escaped me the last five years will be halfway complete upon our move.  It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.  What a great surprise!

Remove, Renew and Reuse . . . I LIKE this concept!  Now if we could just start putting the rest of the house back together . . . .