Before and After: New Games Cupboard

BEFORE

When we moved in to our apartment nearly fifteen years ago, we had the brilliant idea of storing our board games on top of the refrigerator. This was a large, and otherwise wasted, cache of space - and anyone who has ever lived in a small pad knows how valuable those are. The selection of games originally included some of the sort you play (chess, Boggle, Balderdash), as well as Bill's relatively large collection of games aimed at teen girls from the eighties (for those too young, or too old, to remember, this was a thing hip twenty-somethings did back in the early oughties: collect vintage things, particularly toys and games, for their kitch value). Once we had a child of our own the selection expanded - first to include preschool games like Mousetrap, and more recently to include strategy games the whole family can play together - things like Dungeon and King of Tokyo and Splendor. At some point over the course of the years we also started storing our breakfast cereal and chips and cookies and a basket of garlic and onions up there. And you can see the result in the "before" photo above. Not only was it rather messy and cluttered looking, but also - as anything left sitting out long enough in a kitchen does - the game boxes got greasy. Every time you got one down to play it you had to wipe cooking grease off it with a paper towel. It was disgusting. And so. Suddenly, not very long ago, it occurred to us that we could put a cabinet with doors up there! At first I think we were picturing just placing some sort of shelf unit on top of the fridge itself. But then we got chatting with a friend who happens to be a very talented carpenter and all around handy person and he pointed out that, not only would that be bad for the fridge, it wouldn't look very good, and also, you know, they make these kitchen cabinets that hang on the wall? He oh-so-kindly helped us find the right cabinet on the Ikea website, we ordered it and put it together, and then he came over and installed it (he really is the best!). Below you can see the finished results - first with the doors closed, and then with them open. Pantry items on the bottom shelf, games we actually play in the middle, and a winnowed down selection of Bill's collection at the top. In that way you do (or at least, I do) when a satisfying home improvement has occurred, I now find myself walking into the kitchen several times a day just to look at this awesome set up.

AFTER

AFTER