Difference Maker

One of the smaller projects I handled recently was (what my wife likes to refer to as) “the difference maker.” Why the term? Well, I listen to A LOT of sports radio, and they always talk about how a player is a “difference maker” on a team. At first she scoffed at the term, but now she has adopted it and used it to describe our renovation.  So, I bet you’re asking what the heck is it…and where is it? Well, let me show you a before and after shot…see if you can find it.

No, it’s not the flowers…or me making awesome pancakes (they really are delicious), it’s the long white board on the side of the fridge. I know, I know…it doesn’t look that exciting, but let me explain the reason behind it. It’s hard to tell, but in the first pic our fridge is almost 10″ from the wall thanks to a copper pipe leading to the ice maker (that doesn’t exist). The previous owners took the fridge with the ice maker and put this one in, but the copper line and huge valve still exist. So, to cover that ugly gap, we went to Home Depot and bought a long pre-painted white board that we had them cut to fit. I actually think it was an individual shelf (hence the pre-painted), but we painted over with our “polar bear” behr paint so it matched. I nailed in a stringer board behind the fridge so that I could affix the long board to, that way it is nice and solid.

Now, all that hoopla behind the fridge is hidden, and it won’t be the first thing you see when you walk in. I’ll admit, it took me a while to like it, but now that it has been in for a bit, I’m glad we did it. Here is another shot:

And yes, we love magnets that look like food. It was a small project that I think had a big impact. Tomorrow, we’ll stay in the kitchen for another “small project” that ended up taking quite a while due to a small technical error.