Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Kitchen Little

Can I just share how little my kitchen is? Ok, I will then. Because it's really important that you know. I think I shall start a segment called "Small Apartments Bite: Tips"

It may or may not consist of more than one edition, this being the first.

You see, sometimes I have been known to have a good idea or 2. This post has 2. But they're both kind of the same. Anyhow, sorry if you've seen this already because you've been over to our apartment and I've inconspicuously pointed out how crazy good this idea was... sorry. That's all I can say.

Exhibit A:

Here you have my tupperware plastic container and baking supplies cupboard. Up top is a container full of containers. I mean, who likes stacking and organizing plastic containers on a shelf?! Not me. So I throw it in there and when I need to find something I pull it out.

And I see that right next to it is my sweater-wearing hot water bottle - I've been looking for that! What a weird place for me to put it... but I digress.

So essentially it's a drawer. Which are a hot commodity in a kitchen this size.


get it!? I know... rocket science is hard but grand.

As for the baking supplies basket, It just made sense to me to put them all together because when you're baking you usually need more than 1 baking supply. The category kinda gets used in one shot, so in those cases you pull that bad boy out onto the counter and grab and go! 

The next exhibit  takes place in the fridge:


I just cleaned out the fridge, which gave me the idea of organizing it in a similar fashion!

And when I say cleaned out, I don't mean it is clean, I just mean there is no more rotting food in there. 

So when you have a super small fridge it starts to look like you have a gabillion condiments. Well, maybe we just do. Actually, that was a surprising perk about getting married. The condiment inheritance! Yay! But anyways, the point is, they can take up space and, well, I may as well tell you the whole story here....

....when we were storing 10 wedding cakes (baked by Mom) the week before the wedding, we had to make room for a rotation of one or two in here and so we took all those condiments, threw them in a cardboard box and put them out on the patio where they stayed fridge temperature, or so we hoped. After the wedding, we swiftly got that straightened out and put the cardboard box back in the fridge! Wow, I can't even believe that happened in real life... and let's pretend it didn't stay like that for three months following. Anyways, it kinda turned out nice to have those condiments corralled except when I wanted to use one. So now we have them corralled on a tray on the bottom shelf. It did appear that that tray (you may recognize from here hehe) was going to fit the other way in, leaving a perfect gap on the side for our water jug to stand up, but the fridge door would not close by this much. So it's in width-ways, but we'll see how long it lasts until I find myself the perfect sized tray. 

I think I like this application of my 'putting things in things' (I need to copyright that- don't mess with a good name!) because I can see almost everything on the tray and can pull it out - like a drawer - to see everything at the back! 



Aren't I so smart?!


I have 1 more tip for small spaces I think. Excited?



Buy tea towels and things in cheery colours that make you happy to look at. Unlike the dark brown cupboards you have to look at while you wash the dishes in your single bowl sink.

I'm in LOVE with the tea towels above. They're just striped. But they're vintage and the most gorgeous coloured stripes I've ever seen in luscious turkish linen. Yep, you heard right. Turkish. 

And no I did not let my dishes accumulate for 18 days (I would never...) I just did a lot of baking and cooking all in one night...for those who were too busy judging to locate my delicious tea towels underneath it all.

Exhibit C:



Hope this makes you feel better if you think your kitchen needs help. We're keeping it REAL right here! I have 13 cupboards and 3 drawers (and 1 single bowl sink). Count them.


That's all for now!

ayla

4 comments:

Leif and Laura said...

Wow tiny kitchen! Kudos to you for making it work. Best thing in it... the bright yellow tea kettle! Your next segment should be about your tiny and now shared closet space!

Wade and Tara said...

WOW!! That is insane!! I am going through my cupboards this weekend and getting rid of anything that we don't use Like the blender that we don't use anymore because we got a bullet! oh and all the duplicates of soup spoons and what not..and seriously it is almost kind of nice to have a smaller kitchen because then it is kept down to what you REALLY need because I feel like half of our kitchen is filled up with stuff we don't even use!! anyways thanks for the post (about time!!)

Terry Anderson said...

I smiled and laughed a little all the way through this post! I love the idea of the tray in the fridge - ingenious!! Your kitchen is cute and you'll know exactly where everything is - well, except for things like hot water bottles (really? in the kitchen?) Good luck with the rest of the apartment! I agree - closets next!!

Ayla said...

Mom - I blame the hot water bottle thing on Emerly... never could find it after she used it! And yes there are conveniences like the fact the I can stir a pot and open and close the fridge at the same time as doing dishes. And grabbing a spoon out of the drawer behind me takes a single motion. haha and the shared closet space is still 90% my clothes cause Ron's are at his parents! haha... maybe once it somehow gets combined.