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The Functional Kitchen
While some kitchens are barely big enough to prepare a meal in, others are large enough to entertain the entire family. Are you getting the best possible use from the space you have? Most of us are not. Even a nine by 12 room can be plenty large enough, if you utilize the area properly. Learn to get the most from every square inch of the room be looking at the room differently.
Begin by imagining the room completely empty. All kitchens are limited as to where the appliances will go, so put them in place, in your mind. You can even put all of the items on a piece of grid paper using, for instance, four little squares to equal one square foot of space. Using your imagination, only add back the things you absolutely must have in the room to keep it functional.
If you are short on countertop space, think outside the box for storing items you may have had on the countertop before. You could hang cooking utensils above or beside the stove for easy access and to make more room in a drawer or counter top. You can use your pots and pans as wall décor to free up another cabinet. A series of small shelves staggered on a wall will make a lovely display of your plates and an old coat rack or a banana holder will proudly display your coffee mugs.
For things that need to be in the kitchen, try using boxes or baskets to keep like items together. If you have a chest type freezer, it can easily become a catch all for everything that doesn’t have a permanent place. Consider the things that normally accumulate there and add a container of some sort to hold the things that accumulate the most. One for mail, a basket for keys, a small box for coupons and so on. Once you can begin to capture these items you can easily find another place for them. For instance, you can get a mail holder or key holder and hang them on the wall.
Another great idea for a kitchen is to set a small window louver on the counter to cover up a cluttered corner. A curtain to hang from the bottom of a cabinet can also be used as a cover up. The insides of cabinet doors will usually allow for some extra space by adding foil and plastic holders or you can add a spice rack to clear a shelf or two. Peg board is not very expensive and you can get very creative with ways to display every day items on pegs.
So, you see you can make your kitchen feel much larger just by organizing and rearranging what you already have. Finding homes for misplaced things and make it easier for you and your family to put things in their place. Once everything has a place it will just take a little time to get everyone in the habit of putting things where they belong.
Michelle spends ages in the kitchen and just loves her beef stew crock pot recipe and other crockpot recipes. Head over to a-crock-cook.com for some other great recipe ideas you can create right in your own kitchen.
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