I follow a Swedish design/diy blog called Chez Larsson.  I think Deanna is amazed anew every time I mention that I follow a bunch of design blogs because I’m not exactly a stylista.  No shock there, I’m sure.

The main thing that keeps me tuned to this particular blog is Benita Larsson’s commitment to perfection.  It’s something I admire and get a charge out of even if I don’t practice it myself.  My ability to see what needs doing in my own home has been sharpened partly by watching Benita as she transforms her house into the haven she has envisioned it to be. Her befores and afters are inspiring, and I’m sure have been a big contributor to some of my latest projects around the house.

I wanted to show you one I’ve taken before and after shots of.  It’s my kitchen undersink area.  I’ve hated the way mine was for a long time, and one night recently I took the bull by the horns and Benita’d it (apologies to Ms. Larsson).

Here is the area under my kitchen sink BEFORE:

Like it?  LOTS of after potential, right?  To be fair to it, my house is 75 years old.  It is a good old girl, and this floor was moments before covered with a respectable amount of contact paper.

The surface you see is a thin layer of veneer.  It’s glued down to boards beneath it and is partially coming away from those boards, but only a little bit.  I decided to let the veneer remain, but to cover it up with another thin board.  So the new floor would sit flat, I removed the piece of wood in the center back which had been covering up a gap in the plaster.

Since I had it laying around, I used whiteboard, a type of panel board teachers often use for dry erase boards in classrooms.  It’s slick and easy to clean and of course, factory-painted.  I cut out a pattern to match the space and took the pattern to my shop where I traced around it and cut out the whiteboard.

It fit perfectly, and fortunately was flexible enough so I could squeeze it under the pipes below the sink by bending it just a bit.  Then in case of any future leaks and to neaten it up, I used white waterproof caulk all around the perimeter and to fill in the gap revealed by removing the strip of wood.

Already a vast improvement.

I finished it by painting the walls a coat of semi-gloss white.

Then I stared and stared and stared at it for an unhealthy length of time.  I basked in it. I may have heard a distant angel chorus.

Of course, now I can see the cabinets are due for a new paint job.  Such is the hazard of painting one thing next to unpainted things.