Valentines Project: You’re the Cream to my Java

Valentines Day. Yup, it’s coming up, and are you, dear reader, prepared? Those of you with significant others, do you find it’s really hard to come up with something for your sweetie that’s not cliché, ridiculously expensive, or something they already have?

Here’s the trouble, it’s been just over a month since we pored ourselves into the Christmas season, prepared carefully the gifts our guy would open, and spent (in my house at least) a pretty penny to make it special. I love giving gifts and I like to go all out, but when you’re on a budget, being lavish hardly removed from the best gift-giving holiday can be tricky.

Flowers are beautiful and a nice meal is appreciated. Someone doting on you just because you are the love of their life is a gift itself. Maybe you don’t even give a gift, and that’s totally okay. Valentines is a time to appreciate your spouse and focus in on the love you two share. You surely don’t need gifts to show love. It’s about being intentional and sanding off the grit and grime of daily life and examining the one you are spending your life with, letting it all flake away and falling into the arms that have been working alongside of you.

In my house we say we aren’t going to give gifts, but we don’t stick to it. But this year we are working towards financial freedom and that means tightening the belt when it comes to spending on February 14^th. I started thinking what my hubby really enjoys. I love to craft and so I figured that this time around I would make something and then it hit me. My man LOVES coffee. Love doesn’t seem like a strong enough word. He feels for it in exact proportion to a dark roast non-decaf kind of brew. (That’s the best I can do, I’m a tea drinker).

A couple notes I’d like to insert here. We live in a tiny apartment. I’m not trying to be dramatic, and I know I could be living in something much smaller, but the kitchen cabinet space is lackluster. We were blessed to have generous gifts from our wedding and showers so we have a lot of beautiful kitchen things that I can’t organize because of the shortage of space. Our counters are cluttered with leftover items that I couldn’t force into the uppers and lowers. I’m not a fan of clutter, so this may speak to some of you like me.

Our “glasses” cupboard is full of drinking glasses and mugs. We’ve accumulated several new mugs, in all shapes and sizes, that just won’t fit snug without stacking them. This can be terrifyingly dangerous when you start to open the door and you hear the clink of a mug ready to topple down on you. It just won’t do.

After struggling trying to finagle a fox head mug and R2D2 mug into a space meant for just one, I realized something needs to give. And not the tower of glass mugs! It just happens that Valentines Day is coming up, and what better way to clear up the cupboard space and surprise my husband with his own coffee bar? The more I thought about it, the more I realized this would be a perfect way to show him that I love him and admire his love for java.

A few months back my mom was cleaning out her garage and offered up a random shelf to whoever wanted it. It’s tiny but did I ever see the potential in it! It’s been sitting in the corner by our front door for a couple months now, but when I realized this is what I wanted to do as my gift for my valentine, the image of that outdated shelf popped into my head.

Here’s my plan. I’d like to sand it down and paint it a neutral color. We don’t plan to live in this apartment for long so I’d like it to easily blend into a new kitchen color scheme in the future. Maybe white? Take a look at the before image below.