Monday, June 27, 2011

Kitchen Problems... and Solutions

Last Friday I promised some photos of our Ikea purchases in action. We bought some Ikea items for a few different rooms in our apartment. However, today I'm going to focus only on our tiny kitchen. I say "tiny" because our current kitchen quite possibly has one fourth the storage that our last two kitchens did, and that's being generous.

Our current kitchen has me dealing with one of those you-don't-know-what-you've-got-til-it's-gone moments. The last two apartments that we lived in had kitchen islands. How I wish we had a kitchen island right now! Lack of kitchen storage forced us to put some dishes into our storage closet, and I realized that we would need a shoe horn in order to put everything else away in our tiny kitchen. Thank goodness there was a little extra room in the pantry for storing some things.


Our major problem is that we have lots of kitchen items and not enough places to store them. Isn't that a fairly typical problem with apartment living?

I stored most of our pots/pans in our only lower cabinet. Yes, we only have one lower cabinet. The architect of this apartment (or possibly interior designer) should be spanked for that. Seriously. My guess is that the person who designed this kitchen has never even set foot in a kitchen. If they had, we might have two lower base cabinets. Don't get too excited!


The only place for some creative storage seemed to be inside of our kitchen pantry. I saw a bare expanse of wall, and a light bulb went off inside my head. My initial idea was to install some hooks and hang the pots and pans, but then we spent an evening at Ikea and everything changed! My husband actually spotted these Fintorp rails and it was love at first sight. I grabbed the coordinating hooks and off we went into the sunset into kitchen organizing heaven.


After a little bit of blood, sweat, and tears elbow grease, we had ourselves some extra kitchen storage. No more pots and pans on the ground inside of our pantry! It's really fun solving storage dilemmas with a little bit of creativity. (Did I really just say that? Nerd!) The designer in me loves seeing every bit of space utilized, so going vertical with storage seems like such a simple, but not often used, solution for our storage issues. We bought some extra hooks just in case I found some other things to hang from our new rails.



So far I'm really liking our new kitchen storage solution. Who needs base cabinets when you can install railings inside of the pantry?! Yeah. Score one for the small kitchen. Even the Swiffer wet/dry mop found a new home. Not to mention our coffee making funnels and a couple of random utensils found a new place to hang (pun intended) too.

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Maybe some day I'll be brave enough
to tackle this part of the pantry:


For now, though, I'll enjoy our
new and improved kitchen storage! (:

12 comments:

  1. Looks like your settling in quite nicely! It's so great to see you having fun making this your home.

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  2. great job girl :) its always a work in progress but you seem to be doing it perfect and the way you and your hubby can access everything! xoxo

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  3. Oh that is just awesome!!! I would have never thought to do that! Must be very nice now!! <3

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  4. Aww, I always love adding in new things to bring in more storage to a space.

    I had to get a little inventive in my collage duplex. The kitchen was about the size of yours now and only one counter top. The other side had a bar. I had to buy a shelving piece and wire rack that had drawers to store thing ziploc bags, pot holders, and boxed food products. It was an adventure.

    Love your new storage addition and creative ways! :)

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  5. Oh I love how they hang! That is a great idea! And I HATE small kitchens so much! Every apartment here in Fort Collins pretty much has tiny kitchens and NO pantry! Are you freaking kidding me? Ha. I am like not living there...but hopefully I'll find a good place soon.

    And Snooze, yay I'm glad you ate there! Yes the Red Velvet ones are seriously the best! Maybe you'll have to try em someday ha.

    Ashley Sloan

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  6. Excellent solution! I love organizing and coming up with new ways to make the most of small spaces. That's pretty much the story of my life when it comes to my bedroom haha. Glad to see you guys are starting to make your place feel like home!

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  7. It looks great, Ash!! What a great solution. Why are kitchens always made SO small? UGH!!

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  8. a little ikea and a little creativity goes a loooong way!! looks so good!! you guys will have fun setting up this new Florida home of yours, i'm sure:) can't wait to hear more about it!
    Do we get a photo tour once you have it all done?
    xo
    L

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  9. That's a great idea!!! It looks great!!! :)

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  10. SUCH a good idea Ashley! WOW, I LOOOVE that! I have the same type of space issues in my kitchen. It's so hard to get to all of my cookware because it's all piled up in one small little space.

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  11. Hey, we have the same rod and hooks! We have little buckets hanging on ours with silverware stored in them. Needless to say, they are awesome!! :) Xo, Katie

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