We live in an apartment. Apartments have notoriously small kitchens, something I find ironic since when buying a house most people tend to look at kitchens (size, updates, storage) as an important feature. It seems that, as an apartment dweller, I should also be living on a diet of take out and microwave dinners. On the bright side, I think our kitchen is a decent size for an apartment, but still, we needed some creative storage solutions to make everything we have fit while still having it be a warm and inviting space.
One of our priorities while organizing was to have everything accessible. It doesn't matter if everything has a place if that place is in the cabinet above the refrigerator or behind four other appliances. Counter space was also a priority because well, it's limited. Our five drawers (yes, five!) were all used up (3 for spices, 2 for silverware), but we still had cooking utensils and we still had spices. So, we looked to the walls.
Nick had already built a pot rack for our pots and pans, our favorite cookbooks, and other odds and ends that we wanted to have in easy reach.
He came up with the idea to build a smaller one to hold our most used spices as well as measuring cups and spoons. It was a great idea. He built it in a weekend and it really did help to solve some of our organizational problems.
Now, the spices I reach for the most are out and within reach of the cutting board and prep stations, just a step away from the stove. The measuring cups and spoons are easily accessed individually, without sifting though a drawer or cabinet and free of the metal chain that typically holds them all together (when you only ever need one at a time).
I'll be sharing some of our pantry and freezer organizational tools in the near future. In the meantime, what kitchen tool/method helps to keep you organized?
great ideas! Any tutorial on how to make pot racks? We too live in an apartment - really small kitchen. Barely any counter top space; 2 drawers (one for silverware and the other one for everything else - ziplocks, measuring cups, in other words out kitchen junk drawer). I hope to move soon, but we may not. So, I am in desperate need of some inexpensive diy ideas to maxemize storage space
ReplyDeleteI should totally do a post on that. Maybe I'll work on that for my moving break. If you want a quick bit of direction now though, here's what we did:
ReplyDeleteWe took a 1"x3" piece of wood (oak) that was 24" in length, attached a piece of trim to make it prettier around the three visible sides and attached some eye hooks (with some openings) so that we could attached and hang our measuring cups. We then attached that to the wall with L brackets and voila - a place for our stuff within easy reach.
I'll work on a more detailed tutorial though. It's really quite easy and makes living and cooking in a small kitchen so much better!