For over a year now, I’ve kept my kitchen and steak knives in a drawer. They were in a silverware separator, at the back of the drawer, and it was the highest possible drawer so that my son couldn’t get to them.
I lost my nice knife block, which was a gift from my parents, in the divorce process. The knives I have now are a cheap set I had pre-wedding that didn’t come with a block; when I got the nicer set from my parents, I set aside the cheaper set. My sister, a few years later, moved out on her own, and I gave her the cheap set to use at her first place. Then, as I was getting divorced, she was getting married, and she was gifted a nice knife set, so I got the cheap ones back. They’ve served us fairly well, for a store brand set.
But now that my toddler is getting taller (seriously – I’m hardly 5’4” so where is this coming from?!), I needed to move the knives up even higher to be extra safety-conscious.
I decided to keep an eye out for an empty and used wooden knife block. While thrifting with my mom and sister one weekend recently (with masks and sanitizer and on a weekend when my son was staying with his father), I found one! It was $4.99, and it was at a KARM (Knox Area Rescue Mission) thrift store.
I also purchased sandpaper – I bought a pack of small sheets at Dollar Tree, actually, and a can of spray paint at Rural King in Heirloom White. I really do like the Rust-oleum brand of spray paint for any project – it’s just really durable for indoor or outdoor use.
After a Lysol spray, I sanded lightly – just to knock the shine off of the wood block. Then I spray painted all sides.
Once that dried, I knew I wanted to stencil something on the block to give it a little extra character. My sister has a Cricut and she printed this cute sprig stencil for me on cardstock. Once the spray paint had dried, I used a sponge brush and some deep tan paint to paint on the stencil design.
I didn’t get it perfectly even, but that’s okay – I like the DIY look and think it looks fairly even with the bottom portion taken into account as surface space too, which was where my initial thought process took me.
I love how this turned out! I think it looks good, coordinates my kitchen well, and – most importantly – keeps my knives up in the hard-to-reach counter corner, away from little fingers.
Safe, cute, and all for under $10! What DIYs have you done for your kitchen?
Kate with a Twang 