DIY In-Cabinet Dish Drainer for kitchen islands

How many of you with a kitchen island sink hate that ugly dish rack sitting on your counter? I for one, loathe it. My kitchen is a very busy one. I get enough dishes to load an entire dishwasher and then some. Like every other Indian household, I have lots of pans, pots and plates in metals like cast iron, copper and silver that require hand washing.

So, when we moved into our new home a couple of years ago, the one thing that didn’t seem to fit in well was that the kitchen sink was in the island. I love a kitchen island and I love a big kitchen sink. What I hate is when they both come together a.k.a a kitchen island with a sink!!!!! And the only reason for that is that big ugly drying rack that sits right next to the sink, on the counter with dishes hanging off it through the day. I would rather have that in some obscure/not so visible corner.

Honestly, a drying rack is an absolute necessity in my house. I’ve seen people make do without one, but uh-uh, not me! Me and that drying rack, we share a love-hate relationship. I cant live WITH it, I cant live WITHOUT it!!! Share that feeling?

If you’re reading further, you get me, don’t you? Worry not, dear friend, I have a solution for you! This solution will work for everyone who has a shelf to spare right next to the sink (preferably).

Lo and behold! Presenting my hidden In-Cabinet Dish Drainer. Check it out! This is how the answer looks! It’s just your regular cabinet with a few embellishments to suit your dish drying needs.

The most important thing that you need to do to convert your cabinet into a drying rack would be to ensure minimum or no moisture build up anywhere inside of your cabinet.

First and foremost, you would find a door that can provide ventilation to air dry your dishes. This was the most tricky part in the renovation. The rest is a breeze, I can assure you. (If your cabinet is hidden from sight, you could choose to keep it door free 😀 and it would work just great. Just saying!)

To change your regular cabinet door to a mesh door, you might need a handyman if you are’t very savvy with DIY. While there are many kinds of meshes available in home improvement stores which are made from galvanized metals and are available as sheets that can be easily cut with a metal cutter, the one I have used is high quality industrial strength rust free stainless steel mesh (only because at that point, I had access to a good carpenter). No worries, if you don’t, there are many tutorials online on how to add mesh door to your cabinets, using the galvanized metal sheets you can buy from any home improvement store.

After we ordered the mesh online, my carpenter had to flatten it which he said was the most difficult part of the job. Thats because the original sheet comes rolled. (this is not chicken wire mesh, mind you, this is very good quality steel). Once he straightened it, he just had to cut it to size and place it on wrong side of the door frame and add beading along the sides to secure it with tiny nails and glue.

Another place to avoid moisture build up would be the insides of your cabinets. We painted the insides with water proof outdoor paint in a dark color that matches the floor, just so the dishes inside don’t stand out.

For the shelves, we ordered steel pull out drawers and attached them to the cabinet. These can easily hold 40-50 lbs, so I don’t have to worry about leaving my heavy cast iron pans in there.

Also, for additional protection, I lined the shelves with fabric drying mats which I throw into the wash once every week. I alternate between two sets of drying mats that I bought specifically for this purpose.

I’ve been using it for a couple of years now and have no complaints so far. My rack is big enough to hold my counter top dish drying rack, so i just placed on the shelf. Dump all those dishes inside, shut the door and poof, see it all vanish, until you need them next morning, all dry and ready to use!

The best thing about this is, the solution is stylish as well as flexible. Let’s say you put your house up for sale and the new owner isn’t a big of hand washing and would rather use the cabinet space, this can still be utilized as your regular every day cabinet ( a contemporary one at that :)).

And not to forget, the icing on the cake, a shiny clean counter top! TA_DA 🙂

FAQs and Links

• Stainless steel Mesh is from www.McNicols.com. They have an extensive collection.
• If you prefer to use perforated sheets instead, you could places like Home Depot for radiator covers. They come in varied designs. These are made of aluminum though. To prevent rusting, you could probably spray paint them with water paint on the inside.
• Good quality Stainless steel draws can be found on Amazon/Wayfair easily. I dont exactly remember the brand I used, but Its working great. According to the labels, each drawer can handle 20-30 lbs of weight.

Some good tips on updating cabinets with wire mesh inserts can be found in these links *https://www.familyhandyman.com/project/ideas-for-the-kitchen-cabinet-door-inserts/ *https://www.addicted2decorating.com/how-to-add-wire-mesh-grille-inserts-to-cabinet-doors-the-easy-and-inexpensive-way.html

Until next time, Happy Making!

Upcycled Cardboard Storage boxes

Wondering what to do with all the boxes you end up with from shopping online? Use them to create long lasting and decorative storage. The good quality ones last for a good decade!

Good thing is, you can custom make these to fit your cabinets (which you all know come in all shapes and sizes) . If it fits my need, I usually collect similar size boxes for 1-2 months and then decorate them all in one go. I have used quite a few milk/coconut water boxes from Costco for the pantry and a lot of the bigger diaper boxes for laundry room storage and continue to do so as my needs change, sometimes without the headache of decorating it too much, as most of them behind closed cabinet doors 😬.

Being only about a little more that 5ft tall, I’ve always had trouble reaching the upper cabinets in kitchens and other areas like the pantry and utility rooms. For such places, I make handles in the bottom half for all these boxes that are in the higher shelves, which makes it convenient for me to pull them out.

I have covered them with everything starting from adhesive shelf liners to scrapbooking paper to fabric. Everything works great! It all depends on your need and supplies at hand. I love using contact paper. You find them in very pleasing designs and colors for extremely low price in dollar stores. Since they already have adhesive on one side, you just need to cut them out into correct sizes, peel and stick making the job way easier.

Duct tape is the one thing I would say is a must for this. I know, I know that I use duct tape a lot in my projects 😅😅. I just find them so utilitarian, I end up using them quite frequently. These duct tapes are so strong, they keep the corners and the top of the boxes from fraying, while giving a nice contrast in color.

Supplies needed:
* Contact paper/fabric/scrapbooking paper
* Good quality Duct tape – in decorative designs and colors if you like
* Scissors
* Mod podge or other glue ( if using scrapbooking paper)

Find video instructions below!

I”ve used these boxes for everything from toys to laundry essentials to pantry supplies. These can last you really long. I have some for more than 7 yrs now! Hope you try them too!

If you’ve stuck with so far, go on and read how I make storage drawers with cardboard 🙂

Until next time, Happy Making!

That little corner where God resides….

I thank the readers profusely for all the love and appreciation. Many have been kind enough to share pictures of their mandirs which were inspired from what they saw here.

Here’s the link to all the impressive re-creations – FACEBOOK Album – Reader’s Gallery: Puja Mandir.  Do check it out. Some are truly out of the world. The same is also updated in the blog here. 

If you have pics that you’d like to share, please post DM me directly on my facebook page  or by email at theexperimentalhomemaker@gmail.com. I would love to share them with other readers. It would serve as inspiration to so many. 

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For most people from India, the home’s pooja mandir  (altar) is a very pious corner of the house.  It could be a corner in the kitchen counter, a single shelf in a bookcase or a special piece of furniture we call pooja mandir, where we house our favorite idols. Most of these idols are passed on from one generation to the next, revered and respected by each one of them. Idol worshipping goes back a long way in the Indian culture. I would think most of the world finds this concept alien and maybe doesn’t even agree with it, but for us it is holy corner of the house which pulls together all the positive auras of the house .

A pooja mandir is a place to gather, to bow, to worship, to pray, to hope, to dream, to focus, to meditate, to chant, to learn, to teach, to thank.  Every god/goddess is not merely a statue, but a virtue the devotee aspires to imbibe.  At the heart of this mandir is the diya (lamp) that symbolizes the happiness in the home – the triumph of good over evil , the light to conquer all darkness in the hearts and outside.

Removable Fabric Wallpaper

Want to hide an ugly stain on the wall?  Want to spruce-up for your apartment wall while making sure you can take it down anytime? Just need a change of scene? The possibilities are endless. Try this ultra chic, DIY and maintenance free effect for your wall.

One of the walls in my new home faces a power line. My husband’s colleague, who is an anti EMF crusader convinced us to cover the wall up with an “Argon mesh” fabric which blocks EMF radiation from entering the house. With all the talk about potentially harmful effects of long term exposure to EMF radiation, we decided to go ahead and install one.

Yes, it served a good purpose, but the dark gray fabric just hung over the wall and made the room look really dull. I kept thinking about various things I could do to mask that ugly fabric. I spoke to a few guys who install traditional wallpaper who said they couldn’t do it with a fabric underneath. It turns out traditional wallpapers need to be stuck to wall, which needs to be prepped by scraping and leveling. Phew! Also, these weren’t removable. We needed a solution which could be reversed with minimum damage.

Then came google to the rescue, where I came across these awesome bloggers who’d used this technique of using ‘fabric starch’ to create fabric wallpapers. The best part about using starch was that, in case you were unhappy with the result,  you could very easily tear away the fabric from the wall, leaving the wall intact. You can even reuse the fabric for some other project after giving it a quick wash to get all the starch off.  How cool is that! I knew which way to proceed now.

ps: I did this project a few months before I considered blogging. I don’t have the best pictures available :(, but I’ll try my best to add as many pics as I can.

Before and After pics of my wall.