*This post is not full of pretty pictures or great ideas. It’s real life, baby! In my head, I was going to move into this lovely little apartment, get married, and then click my ruby red slippers together and voila… have a perfectly organized, super cute little home by the beach! I’m learning it’s not that easy. It takes time, money, and a space. Not to mention the difficulties of trying to spray paint on the balcony!
One drawer. No disposal. The kitchen is not one of Sunny’s highlights. One pro is that is is all brand new. I found this blue print, along with Home Depot receipts of the kitchen remodel that happened in June 2011, 2 months before Andy moved in. It’s clean and new, just not exactly how I would have done it 🙂
This is the kitchen: The other side is a blank wall and a window. I kind of lied because we do have another drawer under the stove. That’s where the pans are kept. Technically, we have 2 drawers. But, in my head a drawer consists of somewhere I could put my silverware or have a junk drawer and the silver ware and junk can not go under the stove.
The Good Will craft shelf turned spice rack shelf story can be found here. Does anyone else leave cutting boards out? I love having them so handy. I realized I use a cutting board or 2 every single day. I would love to have a nice wood block put in on top of the dresser 🙂 We’ll see about that!
The dresser and this is all we have for storage in the ‘ol kitchen. The tops of the cabinets have become the collector of all homeless items in our house.
I’ve tried to organize as much as possible… like putting all the baking goods in the same location.
We really need some grown up dishes. This is such a hodge podge mix of my college days plus freebies from my mom! The under wire shelf is greatness. I used to use them in the laundry room for extra storage. (You can only find them at Lowe’s!)
This is our main pantry. I’ve moved the shelves around a lot and finally decided on a short bottom shelf just for can goods. A taller middle shelf that still only fits certain cereal boxes, and a medium top shelf for the rice, corn bread, mac and cheese and cous cous! I’m going to make a little box to hold all of the packet spice things.
Here is the smaller food cabinet. The top 2 shelves are for jars and bottles, and the bottom shelf is dedicated to coffee and tea! The Tassimo pods take up lots of room. I’m working on a storage solution for those suckers too. By working, writing it on the to-do list 🙂
Stuff next to the dresser that has no home, but can’t live on top of the cabinets because we use it too often. You know things that would usually live in a drawer like dishtowels and pot holders! And the plastic plates are a current “do we really need these dilemma”. They are nice for grilling outside, but storage is an issue.
I recently learned that our line (floor plan) is the only one to have a window in the kitchen in the building. I like my window. It also has a window sill where inevitably stuff lives…. more tea in those containers.
One last thing, we’ve got dishwasher design issues… why oh why would someone think this was a good idea. I guess it does save space in the bottom rack, but it makes you have to close the bottom drawer every time you want to toss in a spoon. And I used to like to take out the silverware caddy and bring it to the silverware drawer to put away. This thing forces you to take out all of the silverware by hand. I suppose not a huge deal, but in my humble opinion, this is not an efficient dishwasher design! At least we have one and it works 🙂
*I wrote this post before I posted about the dishwasher on C.R.A.F.T. facebook, and long story short… I decided my dishwasher is better than the caddy in the middle dishwasher breeds! You can read our facebook convo here or wait for me to post about the dishwasher trick on 3 tricks Thursday, next week!
- Research and buy new dishes (I had no idea there were so many kinds… stone ware, fiesta ware, Corelle, porcelain, bone ware!) (check!)
- Container for bag spices in the large food cabinet
- Container for Tassimo pods to clear out the bottom shelf of the small food cabinet
- A home for pot holders and kitchen towels (possible a wall storage system?)
- Deal with the random stuff on top of the cabinets
- Get rid of/ organize random stuff next to dresser
- Clean out and organize the dresser
- Buy and mount a paper towel holder
Comments & Reviews
Brilliant and just darling!
A real pantry, 3 kitchen drawers… One day!
I have four of these Sterilite 7-drawer carts. One in my kitchen, one for my office/computer stuff, one for crafts/sewing and one for my hubby's tools. They are wonderful if you can find them. I also use a small 3-drawer office organizer for my silverware.
http://www.sterilite.com/SelectProduct.html?id=408&view;=0&picture;=1&tab;=Description&ProductCategory;=187§ion;=1
We're making progress on our kitchen. Yes, I have 'real' pantry, which we've recently downsized. We're in the middle of remodeling–which is great and its frustrating at the same time! It will be wonderful when it's done! http://welcomehomefarm-tj.blogspot.com/
My kitchen sucks, but it's not as bad as yours. I am an extremely organized person so I freak out if my storage ware isn't stacked just so. I have a real pantry, but it's the only storage space in the house, so it's also home to umbrellas, paper plates, napkins, trash bags, etc. I bought can tiers to help organize those, baskets to hold our smaller items, and racks to put on the door for organizing bread and spices. My kitchen is a constant work in progress because there is no storage anywhere else and there just isn't enough in the kitchen. I purge all the time and I won't buy something unless I have room for it. But your kitchen looks MUCH smaller than mine!