Small Kitchen Spaces--Make It Work For You!

Again, on Friday, after working on the linen closet and making delicious goodies, I still had to work on the kitchen.  In my flurry of reorganizing and downsizing the kitchen, I seemed to acquire more space.  Amazing how that works!  I have accumulated so many kitchen things in the past eight years, and even though some of it sold in rummage sales of the past, I still have items that I can't bear to part with, either because they have sentimental value to me, or because I'm convinced that they will be used when we find our larger "forever" home.  So up in the cabinet they go, buried and inaccessible, until now.  Knowing that we will eventually be moving, I decided to pack up these items now, and save us the trouble when the time comes.  Plan ahead!  There are things that I used daily, and that is where I started with this project.  I attacked my spice cabinet, the cabinet over the stove.  I've never liked having the spices in that cabinet--I'm too short to see what all is up there.  My solution?  An idea from my mom, who keeps her spices right next to the stove.  I cleaned out three drawers in the bottom cabinets:

The towels that were in this drawer are now on the counter

One was full of extra decorative hand towels that I can get away with not having for a while, so those went to the packaway pile.  That gave me a whole extra drawer.  Now, I moved our "utility drawer" (most people call it a junk drawer, but we actually use the stuff in this drawer) over to the empty drawer by the doorway, making room for my aluminum foil, plastic baggies, wax paper and so on to be moved over one drawer, but still in close proximity to where I need it.  That still leaves me with an empty drawer.  Oh, so exciting...

I used drawer liner for the bottom of the drawer, but ran out of the tan color

I took all of my small spice jars down from above the stove.  I set them all out, and put like items together, and combined bottles that were half full or refilled the jars in my spice rack on the counter, and that eliminated a few bottles.  I began placing them in the drawer, keeping baking spices on one side and cooking spices on the other, and right next to the stove, which is so much more convenient and easy for me to see!  Now I know what I have, and I'll have a much easier time keeping an accurate inventory of what I need.  I love it now!  Thanks for a great idea, mom.  I kept the larger spice containers above the stove, but those are easy to see and easy enough to reach that it's not a problem.  I also cleaned out some things above the stove that I wasn't using, putting them in the packaway pile, which gave me some (*gasp*) empty space in the cabinet!  What now will I do with that?  I'm sure something will find its way up there.

Next, I moved on to the pantry.  Our pantry is really just a wardrobe that we bought at Lowe's and put together in the kitchen, but it works great for storing our food and other items.  Mostly, it just needed reorganizing, but there were some things that were either thrown away (expired, stale, what have you) or put in the packaway pile.  Below is a before and almost after picture:

But after rearranging everything to make it more accessible, I still wasn't done.  I had a few more ideas for two of the shelves in there, but was running out of time and energy and still had to work on dinner.  I put things on hold for the rest of the day.  For dinner, we had marinated pork chops, fresh green beans from the market, and this amazing twist on mashed potatoes that I found on The Pioneer Woman: Crash Hot Potatoes.  These are great, and a new favorite of hubby's.  You boil potatoes with the skins on, place them on an oiled baking sheet, smash them down with a potato masher (or if you don't have a masher, use something flat, like the bottom of a glass), coat them with olive oil, add kosher salt, pepper, herbs of your choice, and bake them at 450 for 25 minutes, or until they start to brown.  Then we added some shredded cheddar on top and baked them for five more minutes.  Oh, what a wonderful little potato!  A new favorite for both of us. Thank you, Ree Drummond, for your delicious recipes!  Be sure to check out her website and look for her show on the Food Network.

By this time I was pretty pooped.  I decided to put my reorganization on hold until Sunday afternoon, when I had some more free time.

Sunday afternoon, I attacked the kitchen.

It never knew what was coming.

I had a pile of packaway things, and still added more by going through another few cabinets and pulling more items out:

If you have given me any of the items you see in the packaway pile, please don't be offended.  I am keeping them, but I just don't have room right now for all of this in a functional kitchen.  Don't worry, it will be used again!

I also decided to go through my stash of cookbooks.  I love having them, but there are some that are used infrequently at most, and had to go away for a while.  I began packing my totes that I brought in from the garage, and in no time the first one was full.  I filled the second one about halfway with the remaining items. I had found my counter again, so I started on that.  These are before pics:

These are after pics:

I moved the coffee pot, which had lived on the counter for four years, to the shelf in the pantry with all of the coffee supplies.  It seemed like a good idea.  Then I moved my stand mixer, which had also lived on the counter for four years, to the shelf in the pantry with the cookbooks.  It seemed like a good idea.  Now I have lots of like items together, and I like that.  Then it was time to stop and get dinner started, thanks to my bread machine--we were having homemade pizza, so I had the bread machine mix up the dough as I continued to work.  So convenient!

This still looks cluttered, but it's not, and it's much more functional than it was

I then moved around some of the items on the counters, and put away my strainer in the space under the sink that I made a few days ago, and now it has a home when not in use (the space under our sink is tight because of the way they plumbed the sink.  It's really a pain to get under there, but I somehow made it work).  It looks so much better, and it is so much more user-friendly.  I have space on the counter to roll out doughs and crusts, and it doesn't look nearly as cluttered as it did.  Plus, when we go to install our counter tops, there will be much less to move beforehand!  It was truly a win-win, er, win-win-win situation.  It took some time, but was definitely worth it!

I know that every home is unique.  What works for us might not work for you.  But I'm hoping that this will at least inspire you to find ways to better use the small space that you might have!

Organization...Less is More!

Well, I started on my reorganizing Friday.  I feel like I accomplished something!  I worked on the linen closet in the bathroom, and rearranged our kitchen pantry and some of the drawers in the kitchen.  I threw away things that I hadn't used, which enabled me to find places for all of the items that I decided to keep.  That would be my main tip here--go through your closets before you start to organize.  Get rid of things that you haven't used in a while...I always have "I didn't know I had that!" moments when I start cleaning.  A good rule for me is how long it's not been used: if it hasn't been used or needed in the last six months, unless it's holiday decor that goes out once a year, then it's not worth keeping.  Set it aside for a garage sale or pitch it.  You'll be happy you did, because after a few weeks, you won't remember that you ever had it anyway!  This is the approach I took.

Dun-dun-dun...the linen closet of doom

Our bathroom linen closet gets messy.  It's our  main storage space in our bathroom for not only our towels, but also any and all personal toiletries and bathroom-related items.  Oftentimes, I just put things on the shelves when unpacking my groceries from the store, and they usually don't end up next to other similar items.  I try to reorganize it every so often so that I can take a proper inventory of what we have and what we need, but it becomes difficult when I can't see what I have.  So, I purchased four baskets at Meijer for $4.50 each.  They were just white rigid plastic, with tall sides and flat bottoms.  I set each basket out on the floor and began pulling items out of the linen closet.  I placed similar items in the same basket, and threw away items that were either never used or expired. I was able to successfully fill (but not overfill) all four baskets, and now have a great system for being able to tell what I have and what I need.  I also used a small tub that I had to throw all of my loose cleaning supplies and bottles in for the floor/bottom shelf.  I successfully reorganized my closet and spent under $20, and am happy with the result!  Now, instead of knocking over a bottle of mouthwash to get to the cold medicine, all I need to do is pull out the basket with all of our medicines and first aid supplies, and then put it back.  Easy peasy!  It looks a lot better, too.  I just need to label the bins so that hubby can find whatever he might need.

First shelf: pthb.  Before picture.  I'm so ashamed.

More than half of what was on the first shelf fit in this bin.  I did this for both shelves and all of the items in the closet.

Second shelf.  Needs help.  Again, ashamed.

First shelf--after reorganizing.  I left a few things out that I use at least once a day.

Second shelf.  I was able to fit two bins on each shelf and still have room for extra items.

Bottom/floor space.  I keep my cleaning supplies in here, but had extra that didn't fit in the caddy.  I used a tub that I already had to put all of the extra bottles and supplies in , and then pushed it to the back to make room for the TP.

And voila!  Linen closet reorganization complete!

I hope this helps you and gives you a few ideas if you are trying to reorganize.  I also started working on my kitchen, reorganizing and packing away items that I don't use regularly.  I will go into that in another post soon to come!

Interiors on a Tight Budget

I don't know why this never occurred to me before, but with the updates and upgrades that we've done to our house, I've never really shared any of the reasons why we do what we do.  I have a degree in Interior Design, so I thought I'd share some of my simple tips and suggestions for anyone else in our position (aka, champagne tastes on a beer budget, as Dave Ramsay would say).  Well, in the event of the remote possibility of putting our house up for sale sometime in the not-too-distant future, we are undertaking another project on our house: updating our kitchen.  Last December, we remodeled our one and only bathroom, and we've finally recovered from that debacle.  Now, we don't have $10,000 to spend on antique firearms, so we definitely don't have $10,000 to do a remodel of our kitchen.  Instead, we are going to work with what we do have: less money, and our own elbow grease (and perhaps we'll borrow someone else's elbow grease, too).  Here are a few tips to remodeling/redecorating what you have with what you have:

Tip #1)We took a day a few weeks ago to run over to Menard's and pick out new drawer pulls and hinges for our existing cabinets.  This was the least expensive part of the upgrade, and really, it can cost as much or as little as you would like.  It all depends on what you pick out!  We switched all of our cabinet hardware from the oh-so-fashionable brass of the '80s and early '90s to a brushed-nickel finish, that will soon coordinate with the new faucet that will fill our new sink with water.  It's truly amazing the difference that a small change like the hardware can make in updating a kitchen!  Now, I mentioned that we will also be replacing the sink and faucet, and those will go along with the new laminate countertop that we have on order.  We will be doing those projects in a few weeks, when the counters come in.  Which brings me to the next tip--

Old brass on left, brushed nickel on right

Old brass, tarnished and in bad shape

New brushed nickel hinges

First set finished!

Tip #2) Update your countertops while keeping your existing cabinets.  Countertops are pretty essential in a kitchen--you really can't work without them.  Therefore, update them accordingly!  In our case, we have a ranch house that was built in the 1960s in a neighborhood development (one of millions that went up during the housing boom of the '50s and '60s, as the baby boomer generation aged and were looking to buy their first house for their new families).  These houses were built quickly and cheaply to accommodate the growing population.  The house, while well-kept and at one time not that long ago used as a parsonage, was updated over the years using lesser-quality finishes, which brings us to today.  Because we are keeping the cabinets, we needed to go with something that wouldn't upstage the quality of the stock cabinetry of twenty years ago--and by that I mean, don't put a granite countertop on inexpensive, low-quality stock cabinets, because it just won't look right.  The finishes in your home should all match, not only in color, but also in quality.  Oddly, I've found that building materials of today, even though they may be stock items, seem to have a higher quality than those from fifteen or twenty years ago.  So, all of that to say this: laminate countertop was the only matching material to consider for our countertop replacement.  Even solid surface material would have looked too upscale (can you tell I hate my cabinets?) in an objective viewer's opinion. Currently, we have green counters.  I don't know why green.  They came with the house.  Fortunately, it's not the mildew-green or avocado green of the days of yore, it's much more minty in color, as you might have noticed from any photos that I have posted here or on my food blog.  It has been the bane of my husband's existence ever since we purchased the house, and we are now going to a neutral off-white with other flecks of neutral tones in it.  We repainted the house when we moved in, and the kitchen became blue, which helped tone the green countertops down a bit, but it was never palatable for hubs.  He's really excited to get this done.  Oh-and one other idea: you can paint your existing cabinets if you really want to give them a new look.  It seems to me that this idea only works some of the time, and the rest of the time it doesn't look good at all.  You have to have a solid picture in your head of the end result, or it will just look bad.  We are not going to do that anyway, but I had considered it in the past.  I think that in our case, it would be a "just look bad" situation if we painted the cabinets.  

Tip #3) Update your sink and faucets.  This is also a small change that can add instant appeal to someone looking to purchase a house.  It may seem like a small thing, but when a stainless-steel sink that has been around for years starts to accumulate that dull finish, and maybe some rust or other stains that Soft Scrub just can't remove, it makes everything else look dingy.  We chose to dump our stainless steel and replace it with a solid-surface sink.  I know what you're thinking--"didn't you just say that it was too upscale of a finish for your kitchen??"  I did indeed say that; however, I'm of the opinion that it's okay to upgrade your sink a step.  You use your sink for some heavy-duty stuff, right?  So get something a little heavier-duty to do the job!  What we chose was a plain white solid surface sink that is an inch or two deeper than our current tubs.  I desperately wanted a deeper sink for larger pots and pans, because ours just wasn't cutting it--it seemed like I was constantly splashing soapy water out of the sink when I would wash roasting pans and such.  We chose the solid surface sink to be purposefully plain in appearance, so that it would still fit in with the rest of the kitchen.  So yes, we kind of upgraded our selection there, but it's really not a big upgrade, and I stand by our decision.  And to go with the sink, we will be replacing the very plain chrome-finished faucet/sprayer combo with a slightly more decorative faucet/sprayer combo.  By faucet/sprayer combo, I mean that the faucet actually detaches to become a sprayer--all in one.  This one will be brushed nickel, to match the rest of the metal finishes in the kitchen.

Our new faucet, just waiting to be installed

Plain sink, but made of solid surface material

To sum it up (pardon the pun), here's an idea of the costs:
Kitchen hardware: $100
Sink: $150
Faucet: $120
Countertops: $350 (the biggest expense)
Garbage disposal (because it needs to be replaced, so why not?): $115
Miscellaneous plumbing parts, glues, nails, etc: Yet to be determined
Total so far: $700

This may sound like a lot, but really, to give a kitchen a facelift, it's not bad at all.  We will be saving money because we will be doing the installation ourselves (and with some help from others who actually know what they are doing), and we also were able to get an 11% rebate at Menard's, because it's a promotion that they run occasionally, so we will be getting about $80 in store credit for Menard's.  If you aren't in a hurry to complete your project, you can also save money by waiting until the individual items go on sale, instead of buying them all at once like we did.


The next thing on my list to do is reorganization. Here is a list of spaces in the house that I plan on reorganizing:
*Linen closet--reorganize with tubs and labels
*Closet shelves in bedroom
*Drawers in kitchen
*Pantry reorganization
*Closets

I will be posting my tips on reorganizing these tight spaces in the posts to come!  I've already started on the linen closet in the bathroom.  Yes, I'm facing my fears.

For those of you who don't care at all about decorating or interior design tips, you can learn something anyway in the Owl corner!

Snowy Owls

Photo from Wikipedia

Snowy owls are known for their white plumage and yellow eyes.  This makes them blend in very well in their habitats of the snowy Arctic regions in the summer and the Canadian and Northern United States regions in the winter. They are the largest owl by weight in North America, and have been known to defend their nests against such predators as wolves.  Their favorite meal is lemmings, but they will also hunt other rodents and small animals like rabbits, other birds, and fish.  The owls hatch with dark spots, but the male snowy owls become mostly white as they mature, while the females retain the black spots, making the sexes easy to distinguish. The amount of eggs laid at one time depends on the availability of food, and they usually lay between 3 and 11 eggs at one time.  So pretty!

Information taken from the National Geographic website and allaboutbirds.org.