The Plan for our Kitchen--Use of Space

The Storage

Our kitchen is a busy place and some days I am in it from the time we get up until the time we got to bed, leaving only to change diapers and use the bathroom. So, getting this room organized well was a top priority when we moved in since it affects my life more than any other part of the house.

Even though our kitchen is a pretty good size, the space was not being used very well:

  The kitchen felt like it was overflowing with kitchen gadgets:

There was no space to do any prep work:

The kitchen was used for several purposes that all were not being accommodated for:

All of this made it impractical to eat in the kitchen nook because I often found myself resorting to using the space in the nook to stash kitchen stuff and prepare food there:

So, by the time food was actually prepared we tended to eat in the living room just so we had somewhere to sit down to eat:

*Picture not available because the living room isn't much cleaner than the kitchen*

First we took stock of what we wanted to use the kitchen for:

*Baking and cooking

*Making coffee, teas and toast

*Storing dishes, pots, pans, lids, cutlery, Tupperware, coffee cups, dry goods, etc.

*Eating 

*Storing fresh herbs in our greenhouse that had been stored on the porch all winter due to lack of space

*Kenneling our dogs

*Providing water for the two cats and two dogs

*Providing a safe place for the baby to play while we cook

*Looking good/showing off our cool kitchen stuff

Although we identified what we needed our kitchen to do, I am not a spatial person so I really struggled with how to store all of this. 

Making coffee, teas and toast.  Eating.  Baking and cooking.

I knew I needed to clear off the counters so I had somewhere to prep for cooking and baking and so I could have the nook free to eat at.  I also knew in the nook area I wanted easy access to the coffee maker, toaster, kettle and tea cups.  We talked about installing a shelf above the nook to keep the baby away from the dangerous hot temperatures of these items, but couldn't figure out how to make that work without disrupting the seating area.  Finally one night when I couldn't sleep I grabbed the table the toaster oven was on, and slid it over to the wall next to the nook.  I moved the appliances onto the table and put the toaster oven where the appliances had been.  This worked well because it helped hide the recycle and compost bins that were on that wall, the appliances on the table were tall and fit on the table better, and the toaster oven took a lot less counter space. 

Storing dishes, pots, pans, lids, cutlery, Tupperware, coffee cups, dry goods, etc.  Storing fresh herbs in our greenhouse that had been stored on the porch all winter due to lack of space.

I knew if I could move the extra shelf out of the kitchen, that would give me a space to bring in our greenhouse so I could grow the fresh herb I'd wanted to have in the kitchen for years.  I wanted to move one of the two storage shelves downstairs to the guest room to store the baby stuff until I get knocked up again, but needed a better way to store the pans that were on that shelf and I knew I wanted some kind of pan rack. 

We looked online at pan racks and saw they were hella expensive.  Also, most of them didn't hold enough pans.  The racks that hung from the ceiling were impractical with our low ceilings, and we couldn't find anywhere to hang them from the ceiling that they wouldn't be in the way.  A friend of ours hung his pans on his wall, which we really liked that but weren't sure how to do that in our kitchen. 

We went to Menards and tried looking for a towel rack to use S-hooks to hang the pans on.   We couldn't find a towel rack that looked like it could look "right" as a pan rack, so I thought maybe we could hang pans off of those wirey shelves you normally use in a closet.  Jason was not super on board with this, but he humored me.  We looked at the wire shelves, then went to the hooks. 

We could not find a hook that would hook onto the wire shelf and hold our pans.  My obvious choice was a "S" hook, but the "S"s that were wide enough were too fat.  The "S"s that were thin enough were too narrow.  Then we saw the pegboard hooks.

Now, to be fair, Jason had suggested using pegboard in the kitchen months ago, but I had envisioned pegboard that looked like the brown, crumbley, unpainted stuff hanging in our garage.  I had adamantly vetoed this and insisted it would look stupid.  However, the pegboard hooks were the exact size I wanted to hang the pans and I was feel desperate that we would never find anything.  Then I saw the coolest pegboard I'd ever seen:

It was diamond!  And I was desperate.  So I thought, "What the hell, Jason might be right."  So we got the biggest piece of diamond pegboard they sold and brought it home.  We didn't know how it would look, but we figured if we hated it we could either take it back or use it for storage in the garage.    

We hadn't put the final coat of paint on the walls yet, but we hung it up when we first got home just to see how it would look.  And it looked SO good.  And I trial-hung some pans on it, and it was amazing how well it worked.  I was totally stoked! 

And I was convinced my husband was the smartest man in the world.  I searched Pinterest to see if anyone else was as smart as my husband, and there were a few results of people who had used pegboard in their kitchens.  In fact, some of them had taken the gross, ugly brown pegboard we had in our garage and painted it in fun, cool colors that really made their kitchen look cool!  And as I looked through all of the ways people used pegboard on Pinterst, I realized I needed a lot more pegboard.

As it turns out, Julia Child used pegboard in her kitchen and recommended it.  Well, I am not Julia Child, but if she can do it without feeling like a weirdo, I was all about it.  I just needed someone to say it was not weird. 

So I drug poor Jason back to the store and bought about a million more sheets of the (much less expensive!) brown pegboard.  We bought two giant sheets of it to hang on the walls, and I regulated the diamond pegboard to behind the door to hold the brooms and cleaning supplies. 

I also bought some smaller sheets of perboard to use as a backsplash to hold all of the gadgets we use when we cook so I wouldn't have to dig through all of the drawers to find a spatula.  Although not as pretty as the tile backsplash we'd bought, it was much, much more practical.  And in the end, thats the most important thing when it comes to a kitchen, and it was easy to return the tile.

Kenneling our dogs.  Providing water for the two cats and two dogs.

I knew I needed a quiet, out of the way space to kennel the dogs.  I wanted the dogs to feel safe and I didn't want them to add to the chaos our kitchen sometimes falls into.  I knew the pet water bowl needed to be easily available to all of the animals and near an outlet for the water pump.  I learned not to put the water bowl next to the kennel because it makes the cats scared to use it.  I provided water for the cats near their food bowl, water for the dogs in their kennel, and a community water bowl away from any of the animals' "territories."  I moved the dogs away from the door and I am hoping we will eventually install a counter over the kennels.  We have wire kennel which make travel easy, but the wire kennels don't give as good of a "den" feeling and I know the dogs like to be under things because they hang out under the nook and the coffee table when they aren't in their kennels.  So some day we will get rid of the microwave cart, put a counter in over the kennels, put the microwave on the counter and the dogs will feel safe and snug.

Looking good/showing off our cool kitchen stuff

I knew I wanted to find a way to show off my Fiestaware.  When we were looking for kitchen colors, I came across a neat kitchen.  While I was looking at this kitchen, I really fell in love with the open shelving they got from taking the doors off of the cupboards, so I thought I might try that on the cabinet that has my dishes in it.  I really love my Fiestaware and I thought open shelving would help me to show it off.

Open shelving

Providing a safe place for the baby to play while we cook

With all of this, I had to keep in mind that I couldn't store anything even remotely dangerous in our bottom cupboards or anywhere within reach of my daughter, which was very limiting.  I am a big fan on the Montessori principal of having kids do as much as they can as early as they can, so one of our lower cupboards is devoted to the baby's stuff so she can open the door and help herself to food she wants, her cups, her dishes, and her silverware.  In the other cupboards I have mixing bowls and other things she can safely play with to make drums out of or sort things in.

Read my "Making it Happen" blogs to see how we fixed our storage problems.