From Kim's Kitchen Sink to mine

My friend Kim, over at Kim's Kitchen Sink, is suffering from a kitchen conundrum. She has a small kitchen and a lot of kitchen stuff and she wonders how best to organize it all. Seeing as how I'm very used to teensy, itsy bitsy kitchens, thanks to two years in NYC, I thought maybe I could help her out.

Below you will find photographs of the kitchen in Rachel, our Fabulous New Apartment. (Remember when I named our apartment?) And I just want to remind you, before you nose around these photos, that this kitchen is a MASSIVE improvement over the bitchen in the tenement.

Photo 1:

Hi! Welcome to our spacious kitchen! If you are seeing this view, you are standing with your back up against the far wall of our entryway. From here you can see, on the far right, our pet hutch, where we keep the pet bowls, pet toy box, flea meds, etc.; above the pet hutch you'll see a shelving unit we picked up at Ikea for like, ten bucks; to the left of that you can see the kitchen counter complete with a stool for me to perch upon while Mike cooks dinner; and on the far left, the side of the fridge. In the background you can catch our enormous kitchen window, and the various items we've purchased and installed to make the kitchen more, erm, useful. Hmmm... that looks like an awfully narrow passageway between the fridge and the counter, doesn't it? THAT IS NOT A TRICK OF THE EYE. IT IS THAT NARROW. Our kitchen encourages healthy eating because if you don't eat healthy, you won't fit in it.

Photo 2:

From this angle, you must be standing in the entrance of the kitchen. And you are probably wondering whether or not you can squeeze your body between the fridge and the counter. You are also probably opening your mouth to say, "Isn't there ANYWHERE ELSE YOU COULD HAVE PUT THE FRIDGE?" To which I will reply, "How original. I think you might be the first person to ask that. As a matter of fact, no. There isn't. We tried. I suppose we could have put the fridge in the entryway, but then we would have a kitryway instead of a kitchen and entryway, and I refuse to ever again live in a place with combined rooms. I've had enough of that, thank you. If you can't fit in our kitchen, well, you can just perch on that there stool* and look into the kitchen."

*stool not pictured in photo 2.

Also in photo 2 you can see how narrow the actual kitchen really is. It's more of a hallway, than a kitchen, if we're going to be honest here. It is a one-person kitchen. Which is fine, really, since Mike does all the cooking while I do most of the eating. On the back wall of the kitchen you'll see the set up Mike installed, which I will further describe in the close-up photo below.

Photo 3

Taa-daa! Close-up. Ok. First, we've got the Ikea Ekby wall shelf brackets, and the Ekby Stilig solid birch shelf. That is where we keep our mason jars with grains, salt and pepper shaker, butter dish, mug tree. Mike hung it at the perfect height to also be used as a little breakfast counter, and you will often find me perched upon my Ikea Bekvam step stool, eating cereal off that little shelf. Also, it is quickly cleared in case we need extra counter space for rolling out pie crusts or decorating sugar cookies. We have very little counter space (as you're about to discover) so Mike wanted to make sure I'd have space for my baking. (I love him so.) Above the shelving unit is the Ikea Grundtal wall shelf, with corresponding hooks for hanging my pot-holders and vintage place-mats. Also, we have a magnetic knife block hanging on the wall for Mike's most frequently used knives, and on the far right, a pot lid holder that we bought at Ikea for $4, but that I can't find on the website. It's wonderful how much space we saved in our cabinets by hanging so much of our stuff on the walls. I'll let you in on a little secret: Most of our cabinets are only half-full and it's ONLY because we hung so many things on the wall. Apparently, Sweden has small apartments too.

Photo 4

I just included this photo in case you couldn't tell before how TINY our kitchen is. See how small it is? It's very small.

Photo 5

At the tippy-top of this photo you'll see how Mike installed cabinets above the kitchen cabinets, to store all the stuff we don't use on a super-regular basis. I wanted to just pile stuff on top of the cabinets that the apartment came with, but Mike insisted we could actually store more things in a more efficient manner if we had more cabinets. He was right. Those cabinets were our linen cabinets in the tenement, and they were originally found in a dumpster. I'm telling you, we are super classy.

Above the stove is a shelf Mike built to hold the spatula jar, olive oil, etc. Also, to the left of the stove is our spice rack, which was about $7 at The Container Store. Mike built our pot-rack out of a packing crate he found. We couldn't believe how gorgeous the wood was once he had sanded and varnished it. You can also see here what is essentially half of my counter space. All of my teas are at the back of the counter, because I like to have them out where I can reach them easily. Hanging above my teas is another Ikea Grundtal item, the Grundtal paper towel holder.

Photo 6

This is essentially all the counter space in our kitchen, except for the birch shelf Mike installed. Tea on the left, coffee on the right. The real space saver is the Grundtal series. It's a rod Mike installed above our sink and hanging from it is our paper towel holder, dish rack, and cutlery caddy. I also hang my dish cloths from that rod. If we had to keep all that stuff on our counter, we'd really be screwed. The dish rack was pricey, $25, but SO WORTH IT. It's beautiful, for a dish rack, and it folds up nicely when it is empty. I couldn't be happier with it.

Photo 7

See how nice??

I am almost 100% happy with how our kitchen turned out. As soon as we scrounge the money together to purchase some potted herbs for the kitchen window sill, and as soon as we get our worm bin*, then I will be 100% happy. As for the rest of the apartment? It still looks like we just moved in, mainly because where there ought to be furniture there is large empty spaces. We're taking it one day at a time.

I'm gonna take a stab in the dark here and say I think this might be the most fascinating post I've ever written. I'm sure you're absolutely titillated. I do what I can, folks. I do what I can.

*Have I not told you about the worms we're adopting? Don't worry. I will.

UPDATE:

This is what happens when two people try to work in the kitchen. We've named what goes on here 'The Kitchen Dance'. It has it's own song and everything.