Our Kitchen

Before we left Florida, I figured I would take you on a tour of our itty bitty kitchen* for a couple reasons. First, because I am a neb nose** and love to see other people's kitchens and living spaces. The second reason is because we live in an apartment. We don't have any fancy storage spaces built in, we don't have a fabulous professional stove. No butcher block island here. No ma'am.

On a lot of food blogs, when I see their kitchens, it looks like a magazine spread. The colors, the design, the storage, their perfectly placed everything. And I think, of course they can cook. They have counter space. They have a six burner oven. So, while our kitchen is a bit more, um, realistic, I wanted to post it to encourage those of you who live in itty bitty kitchens that you can cook and make great tasty meals.

We use every inch we have, including the walls. On one side, we have pots and utensils, along with a bit of book storage.

Bread board, pot rack, box lid turned utensil holder

Our apartment issued stove and our personal toaster oven (which is used far more than our big one). Salt pig and oil are standing by for frequent use. Our case iron skillet practically lives on the stove.

Our spice drawers.

Sink and the dishwasher that sounds like an airplane. We also park our mixer and blender there. It's our baking and smoothie corner. Our pasta maker is attached to the overpass.

Under our cabinets. We did our best to maximize space with the racks on the top shelf.

Our main work station. We put as much on the wall as we could to maximize the little amount of countertop that we have.

Hanging our measuring cups makes them easily accessible.

Our most used cookbooks are in the kitchen. We store others in the living room.

Our pots hang on the wall so we have more cabinet space for other items.

Our little kitchen has served us well. We've modified it as much as we are allowed so that it was the most useful for us, and in most instances, those changes have increased our storage space and efficiency in the kitchen. As we head across the country, we'll miss our itty bitty kitchen, but look forward to maybe, just maybe, not having to wear noise cancelling headphones when we run the dishwasher.

*I realize that our itty bitty kitchen is probably a luxury in New York City, but in the burbs, where kitchens are frequently the size of our apartment, ours is pretty small.

**Pittsburgh for nosy. I'll get you all educated, slowly but surely.