kitchen

House Tour- Organizing our Kitchen

July 25, 2017

Last week, as part of my house tour posts, I shared with you the design and layout of our Kitchen and adjacent Breakfast Area.

Now, I am going to take it all a step further and explain how we keep our kitchen organized.

Sure, it has its moments when you can barely see the island when it’s covered in bags, Autumn’s artwork from school, coupons, dog leashes, and freshly washed dishes. Not gonna lie, the random sock sometimes finds it’s way on there too.

That’s real life! But the best way to combat the mess is approaching the kitchen from several different ways from when you design it to move in and live in it.

As well, finding products that best suit your needs. We have incorporated various products from various brands but the biggest things that really revolutionized how we organized the things in our kitchen came from Rev-A-Shelf. They carry products big and small that will help you better organize your kitchen, as well as improve its functionality.

When designing or remodeling a kitchen, I highly suggest starting out by planning out what you have to store away and what you feature to strategically plan where things go. Like we have a our coffee area where the coffee maker is located on the counter, by an outlet, and directly above is a cabinet that stores our mugs, coffees, teas, and to-go cups.

By having specific places for things throughout the kitchen, things can get organized and cleaned up again rather quickly. There is a spot for everything so things can easily put right back in their spots. And it certainly makes finding things a lot easier.

Some of the ways that we have it well organized is the way that we actually designed the kitchen. We made changes to the style and size of cabinets and the arrangement of them. For example, on the ‘active’ wall of our kitchen, we have a 30″ wide microwave cabinet, a 18″ wide cabinet with a door and drawer above, our stove, another 18″ wide cabinet with a door and drawer above, and a 30″ wide cabinet with 3 drawers. The symmetry looks good and after awhile you get used to taking a certain number of steps to each cabinet that your body gets a nice rhythm to each location.

On either side of the stove we have tools that help us use the stove from oven mitts to spatulas. Being able to reach them from the stove is key. It helps functionally and with safety.

Below those drawers are things that we also use often. Our various cutting boards and baking sheets are stored on the left side of the stove. This makes grabbing a sheet for baking up french fries easy, as well as grabbing a cutting board for making a salad. This location worked well, but the items got mixed together and would fall over making the cabinet a mess. The 18″ High Tray Dividers (597-18-50) has allowed us to store and organized our wooden and plastic cutting boards and our baking sheets and cooling racks separately.

On the right side of the stove, we installed an 14″ wide Tall Base Cabinet Pull Out (4WDB7-18SC-1) that allows for the cabinet to be stocked full of bake wear, but still be well organized and easily accessible. Had we not used the cabinet pull out, it would have meant that things would have been haphazardly stacked up and jammed in there, which would just mean that over time things would get messy. This pull out makes baking a breeze.

Even our decorative floating shelves serve a purpose. They hold gifts, memorabilia from trips, and other things that are special to us. Plus, the lower shelves have various sized small bowls on them that we use for misé-en-place when preparing a meal.

The large cabinet that is directly next to the refrigerator is the work horse of our kitchen. It has 3 drawers that is the work horse of the kitchen. The top drawer is our drawer for all our tools ranging from can opener to pepper corer, the drawer in the middle is for Autumn’s stuff, and the bottom drawer holds our Tupperware.

As the top drawer holds so many tools of various sizes we upgraded the drawer organizer that I picked up from Ikea. I believe that since Ikea has their own line of cabinets, they size their organizers to fit their cabinets, which meant it didn’t fit in the cabinet. It resulted in a lot of wasted space around it (picture on the left), so we swapped that out for the Trimmable Cutlery Tray (4WCT-1).

The middle drawer holds all of Autumn’s plates, bowls, cups, and straws. I would try to keep it nice and organized but it would just end up in a jumbled mess when things would get tossed in there or pulled out for use.

The Medium Trimmable Pegboard System (4DPS-3021) allows us to partition the drawer out into different sections, creating specific spots for the different things store in the drawer.

Besides it staying super neat, Autumn can now easily find stuff so she can help get her own cups of water or snacks. She can even help put things away when we are unloading the dishwasher since she can easily stack the things she is added to the drawer to the things already in there.

Everyone knows the Tubberware cabinet/drawer is the messiest place in the kitchen. It’s the random top throw together, no top matching, miscellaneous, “is this even ours?” place for all the plastic stuff to be tucked away and forgotten about.

First we purged out our collection of random pieces. Then then we used another Pegboard System to help create spaces for the different containers. It’s great how they stay put when the drawer is opened and closed. A little organization went a long way with that space but it is much needed and a big time saver for after dinner next day meal planning.

The island is equally efficient for us. Not only is the sheer size (9′ long!) helpful, but the cabinets and things located at the island is very helpful for the overall function of the space. The island has our plumbing fixtures, which makes doing dishes really easy. Rinse a dish at the sink and then put it in the adjacent dishwasher.

We even organized the sink cabinet by adding 2 organizers and a towel holder.

The Door Storage Trays (6232-14-11-52) mount to door providing a place for things like sponges, dish soap, and cleaning supplies.

The Door-Mounted Dish Towel Rack (563-32) will help us by providing a spot for our towels, preventing clutter on our counters. Plus, then the dogs can no longer yank the dirty towels off the stove handle.

As well, I do most of the kitchen prep on the island. I work directly to the right of the sink, which gives me plenty of room to work. Additionally, I can swiftly dispose of trash right into the pull out trash can that is located in the end cabinet.

The very first item we installed in our kitchen was the 30-Quart Bottom Mount Wire Waste Container. The sleek design and finish is a nice feature in an otherwise forgotten space. The hardware has a no-slam slow closer feature which makes operating the trash can with ease. It’s just as easy to pull out, which is great for Autumn.

In the drawer located above the trash can, we have our cutlery organizer. Locating it there means we can stand right next to the dishwasher and unload the clean utensils right into the tray.

On the other side of the sink is another cabinet that is the same size as the cabinet that holds our trash can. Installing our trash pull out in the equally sized cabinet, inspired us to install another pull out trash container for the dogs’ food. But we actually took it to the next level and got a 2 can pull out (typically used for trash and recycling).

The Double 35 qt. white container Pull Out System (5149-18DM-211) has allowed us to create a doggy station as we have their food in front and all the toys in the back. They are not the kind of dogs that can be trusted with toys just being out in the house as they, especially Kemper, get really focused on destroying and eating them. Let me tell you, a dog eating a rope toy is a mess and a safety issue too. But now everything they need is right where it needs to be. So perfect!

The remaining cabinets and countertop is a 6′ side section where we have the majority of our small appliances.

On the counter we have storage jars for baking supplies. It’s functional but also just pretty. Plus, getting to easily snag a marshmallow every now and then is a perk!

All of our small appliances are in the base cabinets. Yes, I have 5 waffle irons which might seem like a lot but I did make waffles every week for a year. yum!!!

Price modified the ill-fitting utensil tray from Ikea but cutting off one of the short ends so that it would fit. Now we have enough organizational cubbies for the small baking items; measuring spoons, measuring cups, pizza cutter, lemon/lime zester, melon baller, and teeny tiny rubber spatulas. The remaining space in the drawer is large enough for our larger baking tools like a kitchen scale and rolling pin.

And every house has a junk drawer, which is always a big mess of whatever. We all clean and sort them at least once a year and then they get dirty and disorganized again in about 2 days. We minimized out junk area with a drawer divider, allowing us to put all of our foils, wraps, and plastic bags in in the drawer too.

Before we put the baking supplies in the drawer were they currently reside, we had our spices in there. This was a disaster as they would roll around and get jumbled up. Some would even spill out the spices out of their twist tops making a mess in there.

Instead we decided to use two 13 5/8″ wide Door Storage Wire Spice Racks (565-14-52) that we mounted on our pantry door.

Use empty space on the pantry door = Win.

Take everything out of a drawer so I now have extra space to store more stuff = Win.

Organizing all the spices alphabetically = WIN!

I am so happy with how well our kitchen is organized now. All of the various products that we used has helped us make cooking and living in the space a real pleasure by keeping the kitchen clean, neat, organized, and useful.

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I was provided product from Rev-A-Shelf, but I was not compensated to write this post. All options are my own.

House Tour- Our Kitchen

July 16, 2017

They say the kitchen is the heart of the home and that is really true for us.

One of the reasons we fell in love with the house was the kitchen. We couldn’t get over how open it felt, even with the giant island. Oh, that island. I instantly fell in love with it when we saw a model home of this house design in January 2015.

It’s a 9′ long x 4′ deep island… that was more countertop than our previous kitchen, and that is just the island!

We were 99% sure on the house but still compared other house designs from other builders to the openness and layout of this design, prior to us signing the contract on a house. Ultimately, the Monroe model from Ashton Woods won out and we signed our contract in spring of 2016.

Then the real fun began… selecting options and finishes at the design studio.

I normally like white, white, white but when we saw the grey shaker cabinets of one of the kitchens in the design studio, we were hooked. It wasn’t a typical wood veneer finish and the grey was a great option on incorporating some color into the house, besides furniture and decor.

One thing I would not budge on was having white countertops. Our last kitchen has black ones it while the finishes of that kitchen worked together in that space, I hated the dark countertops. It was really tough to photograph process pictures for food recipes, and I just love the look of light countertops. I think they really help with making a space feel larger and brighter. (They look yellowish in the photos but it’s white- trust me, there is no way I would have picked anything else!)

The standard options for both the cabinet style and finish and countertops would need to be upgraded to achieve our desired look.

We picked a blend of upgraded cabinet styles for our kitchen. The grey shaker cabinets that are the majority of the cabinetry in the kitchen was a Level 6 (ouch… $$$), and the white shaker style was a Level 4 (not such an ouch!). Besides the color the biggest difference between them was the drawer style and construction of the door panels.

By blending the 2 cabinet styles we saved $513. The blend works as the white cabinets are only at the island and therefore are primarily visible in the kitchen work area, not particularly visible from the rest of the house, especially from the living room and backyard.

The standard countertop is granite, but the finish options they had were too dark and busy for our preferences. We had the option of upgrading to a composite material or marble. While marble is incredibly gorgeous, we opted for a composite as it was a fraction of the cost. I love how it is bright it is with a nice fleck pattern that is not distracting.

Our builder has a lot of options for cabinet styles to have a custom kitchen that you design to your design aesthetic and needs. Some builders do not have these options so this was one of the reasons we were drawn to them. I really appreciated the ability to customize the kitchen, even when the cost of some of these items we could customize was cost prohibitive.

One of the big things that I wanted to do in the kitchen was to remove the standard cabinet mounted microwave that was mounted above the stove for a microwave that was integrated into a base cabinet($130 add). This one thing great transformed our kitchen by having a hood installed over the stove. We were provided with a $1,458 for removing the 3 cabinets originally spec’d for the wall.

Then we further opened up the look of the wall by removing the cabinets on either side of the hood (receiving a credit for this) and installing floating shelves. The wood finished shelves we installed were from Threshold at Target. They are 4″ shallower than the grey shelves we could have installed at by the cabinet builder, but they only provided a flat price per shelf, so a 20″ long shelf would cost the same as a 8′ long one. We were not paying $468 per shelf that was less than 2′-0″ long! Hell no. So our $30 a shelves are working just fine for us.

In addition do those custom changes we added a tall filler panel next to the fridge and swapped out a base cabinet that came with doors for base cabinet that has drawers. We had wanted to do an integrated trash cabinet but the price exceeded our budget so we installed a pull out after we moved in.

The builder had plenty of options for backsplashes but the ones that we liked were very expensive (go figure!). We decided to leave the wall bare with just paint as we save up for a tile that we like. As well, we have the option of installing a pot filler above the stove as we have a pre plumbed for an utility sink in the garage, and it worked out that the location of that is almost directly behind the stove. So we don’t want to tile the wall yet, just to rip some of it out for the faucet.

The only architectural change we made in the kitchen was that we omitted the closet at the door that leads from the kitchen to the garage. We knew we wanted to put the pie safe there and the closet would not have allowed it. The pie safe works really well there as storage for our Pyrex and it’s a feature right at the entry that we use most often.

The walk in pantry is directly opposite the garage door so it makes dropping off groceries in there really easy.

One of the littlest things in our kitchen is one of my favorite things. We had an air switch installed for our disposal. This is a button that is intergrated into the counter that you press when you want to turn your disposal on and off. I like the look of this and I also like that I don’t need t open and close the cabinet below the sink to use a switch every time I want to use the disposal.

We had some issues with the install of the microwave cabinet which still need to be adjusted by the millwork company, but the responsibility with scheduling them is in my court. Ya know, just been a bit busy lately with a newborn!

We sit at the metal stools and the table in the ‘Breakfast Area’ most often for meals, while our dining room gets used a bit less. As it is getting day to day use we wanted that to look homey and casual. We reused a table and a set of chairs that we had refinished that we had in Boston. I like how both our stools and these chairs are fun colors.

I found beautiful palm prints on Etsy from the WildBOOK store. We wanted something bold on the wall and these worked out perfectly. I had them printed at 24 x 36 and put them into simple white frames from IKEA.

The drapes we have on the slider are from IKEA and also add some fun color to the space. We layered 2 sheers using the VIDGA triple curtain rail system. The inner curtain is FLÖNG, a patterned sheer, and the outer one is AINA, a blue light weight linen. We use the same curtains and set up in our living room as well.

Also, like our dining room, we need a ceiling light junction box relocated. They centered the junction box for the light fixture centered in the space but we prefer the table to be centered on the wall with the palm prints instead. We removed the standard fixture and installed the really affordable pendant that I picked up on an Ikea run recently. The $30 JASSA pendant and the $10 wired SEKOND cord gives the area a more casual look which works well for the feel of the breakfast area that we are going for. When we have the junction box in the dining room moved, we will have this moved as well so that the light is centered over the table and then can hang lower above the table. But the $40 fix works for us now.

I also have high hopes of getting a fiddle leaf fig plant in the corner next to the sliding glass doors, but I am afraid it will feel too trendy and I’ll kill it. I’ll have to figure something out soon. Once I find a great pot for it I will be inspired to get a plant. I am looking for something modern looking. Totally open to suggestions!

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