Ever since I moved into my current apartment, I’ve never used the dishwasher. I just find it so time/money/energy/water consuming. Unless you’re a big family or something and have tons of dishes, it didn’t't make sense for me to use it. Recently, my roommate told me that it was dirty inside – likely from all the dust that’s accumulated. So I turned it on for a quick spin. I was shocked to find that the water wasn’t draining, and ended up scooping up most of the water with a cup.

My first mission was to go and find a new dishwasher. I found some reasonable priced dishwashers, but since I wasn’t going to use it, it seemed like a total waste. The only reason I would get it is that the suite would sell better if it had a dishwasher. But since I didn’t know when I’d move out and sell the place, it made sense to take out the broken dishwasher and install a cabinet instead. It would store all my stuff that would normally be sitting on the counters in the kitchen.

Out of order…

Taking out the dishwasher was a bit of a challenge. Thankfully, there’s YouTube. I watched several of them, like this one to see how it’s taken out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6DluU6KM98

I asked for help taking it out – I’m glad that I did cuz it needed a lot of force. I could have never been able to pull it out with my no-muscle arm, lol. At times, it was even hard for him. Since I had ‘studied’ on how they were installed and stuff, I had the knowledge and could direct him on what went where. We were a good team. After it was taken out, the dishwasher was taken away for $25 by Sears and it became a corner under the counter where ‘stuff’ sat for a while…lol

We then bought shelves. We bought a big 24″x48″ board for $15 from Home Depot and cut them accordingly to size (that we had measured numerous times before) so that they would fit in properly.  The rest was also from Home Depot; the door was $60, already made with hinges, the handle was a special order for $30 which took about 2 weeks, a couple bucks here and there for brackets and washers, plus one scrap wood for free. So in total, the project cost about $130. Not bad.

Measurements are important!!

Tools!

First clean out the inside. Added a small narrow board at the bottom.

You can fit a lot of stuff in there! More counter space!

Tadaaaa~!

I’m super impressed with the result, considering the guy wasn’t a professional builder or anything, and didn’tt have all the tools – but he can do just about everything lol. I love it – it holds so much stuff! My counters are clutter free from blenders, rice-cookers, toasters, and pots. The heavier weight of the door then the rest of the doors in the kitchen makes it more higher-end, and must say is my favourite cabinet