This Lo Life

We're on a major home clean out and tidying streak right now and I had to create a system to hang up some items in our garage. Allison and I decided on putting a piece of wood across one of the walls in the garage to hang things from. I settled on a 2x6 because I thought the more wood the more mounting options. However, I did not realize how heavy it was going to be. It turned out not to be a problem with Allison's help. I was about to start fastening it to the studs when I discovered I didn't have long enough screws. So I ran over to Home Depot and got some help in figuring out what kind of screws I needed. I was introduced to lag screws. Lag screws are thicker screws that require the use of a socket wrench. I settled on 5/16"x3" lag screws. These suckers are tough and will not be going anywhere. After some trial and error of positioning the various hooks, it was finally up. I think this project took about three hours to complete.

Today I completed the dishwasher enclosure, installed a tricky filler piece and the end panels. I got ideas on how to complete the dishwasher enclosure from Pinterest and most of all,  Ana White . The dishwasher end panel is secured to the sink base, the concrete floor and to studs in the wall. Fastening into concrete was pretty easy. I just used a masonry bit to drill through the wood and into the floor and then screwed in a concrete fastener. It went in without a problem. This project took me about two hours to complete. The filler piece was kind of complicated because it tapered from the bottom to the top. So I used a tip I got from finehomebuilding . It worked and it fit. Lastly, I got the end panels on. This kitchen is really coming together!

Joel and I went back to work on the kitchen cabinets. After some discussion on ways to remedy the problem with the microwave and stove enclosures, I decided to make an attempt at moving the corner base cabinet further towards the wall. Joel and I made some measurements, dry fitted the cabinets with the doors and drawers on to see if they would continue to be operable with less distance between them. After some struggling with a finicky drawer front and getting the drawers and doors in, everything looked okay so we moved the cabinet over. Again, we took more measurements and made sure the doors and drawers could open without a problem. Everything looked good! Joel had to take off after lunch so I went to work on cutting the filler strips for all of the gaps. I spent some time measuring the various sized pieces I needed cut and then got to work with the table saw. That piece of machinery makes life so much easier. I was able to cut a bunch of pieces without much effort. In the proces...