That being said, I think I’ve come up with a tentative plan to rearrange some of the areas in our kitchen that are not working. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those continuously “in progress” projects, but hey, at least it will keep the Mister on his toes!
After my post about the current state of our kitchen, I visited the sites I mentioned and got some great tips and ideas. I played around with my homemade map and rearranged things about a billion times. It was probably closer to six times, but it felt like a billion.
To reduce that overwhelming feeling, I decided to break the kitchen down into three zones and then I focused on each one individually.
The first zone is the dish storage zone.
This area is right next to our dishwasher and seems like the logical place to store our everyday dishes as well as our extra set of dishes that I haven’t convinced myself to purge yet. I decided to move the “drink” glasses over by the alcohol cabinet and replaced them with our coffee mugs and coffee making supplies. I plan to move the coffee pot over to that corner of the counter so that everything we need is right there each morning. Our daily dishes will be stored in the top cupboards and any extras will be stashed in the bottom for when we need them. One of the drawers in this area will also hold our place mats and fabric napkins since this is the closest drawer to the dining area.
Next, I worked on the food prep zone.
I decided that I will consolidate our two drawers of silverware into one. I plan to move our knives out of our knife block (and off the counter) and into one of these drawers. I often prepare food (chop veggies, meats, mix, etc) on this part of the counter which leaves me constantly turning around to look for the knife I need. I think it will help to put them right there in the island. I am also going to attempt to purge our utensils from three drawers to two.
The pots and pans will stay where they are since this seems to be working pretty well. Next to those, I’ll put our glass baking dishes and I’m hoping to put our cutting boards here too. This way, they are right under the knives when I need one. To help the consolidation of utensils, I plan to stash a basket filled with all of our “formal” serving utensils in one of the lower cabinets here. Right now, they are in the drawers and just get in the way most of the time since we don’t use them often. I will also store our Pyrex carriers in the same cabinet.
The last zone is just a general storage zone.
The alcohol will stay where it is for now. I haven’t found a good place to put a buffet or hutch in our dining area so, unfortunately, these items will stay in the kitchen. This is where the drink glasses will get moved to also. Next to the stove will be cooking oils. And, for lack of a better place, I decided to put our lunch bags and to go cups in this space. The spices will move to the top drawer. I made this change after I saw this adorable spice storage solution and plan to implement something similar. The remaining drawers will hold foil, Ziplock bags, cookie cutters and other baking supplies, and then our trash bags and plastic bags.
The cereal will move to where the coffee supplies once were and I decided to put our cereal bowls in that same cabinet. The fruit bowl sits conveniently underneath on the counter. The set of drawers between the sink and stove will hold our kitchen towels and hot pads, small appliances, and larger mixing bowls and colanders. I decided to put these items in drawers because I figured they’d be a bit easier to get to than stuck in the back of a lower cabinet.
My hope is that with a little bit of purging and some creative organizing solutions, this plan will slowly take shape. Since my calendar and budget are constantly demanding my attention, I plan to tackle this project one zone at a time. As I promised before, I will share each step of the process along the way.
Do you have any tips or tricks for kitchen arrangement/storage?
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