More Storage

The kitchen in this house is way bigger than my kitchen in Texas but I had storage on the second floor of the shop. Here, the same as when we lived in MO before, I have several shelving units in the garage. I know I have too much stuff but since I have it, and I use most of it, I’m not getting rid of it and I need a place to put it.

The bigger issue for me is that in the kitchen, there’s upper cabinets over all the countertop except one little area – the area over the dishwasher on the bar but, there’s no electric plug there. The only electric plug near the bar is on the other side of the sink so to use that if I had a pressure cooker sitting on that part of the counter with no cabinets over it, I’d have to run an extension cord right over the sink. The pressure cooker and the slow cooker have steam that goes up under those upper cabinets and I don’t want to damage any of them. I had asked Vince about putting an electric plug at the end of the bar (on the wood siding). The electrician looked at it when he was here for something else and he wasn’t sure there was room between the dishwasher and the edge of the wood to put the “box”, even if he used a slimmer box, which he didn’t really want to do. He asked Vince to measure the space when they pulled out the dishwasher. Vince did and the electrician said it was big enough but, for some reason, Vince isn’t wanting to do that. He says he will but he keeps putting it off which tells me, he just doesn’t want to do it and it probably has something to do with cutting into the wood and walking into the room and facing that outlet. I don’t know . . but if he doesn’t want to do it, there’s other things I can do.

I’ve been thinking . . if I put a baker’s rack or something like that in the sunroom, I could put the slower cooker, the pressure cooker, and the grain mill out there. The sunroom is right off the kitchen so it’s not inconvenient to have those appliances in there.

Last night I was looking for something at Sam’s Club online and I found this:

I asked Vince what he thought about putting that in the sun room. We’re never going to use it as a sun room – with furniture for sitting out there. We have plenty of windows in this house and we have three different rooms for sitting. I told him . . if we get this, that would mean I don’t need to put the electric outlet at the end of the bar. Oh . . he was all over that idea. He grabbed a tape measure, went out and measured the wall in the sun room. It’s a bit over 10′. He said “Let’s get three of them!” Three would kinda mean you’re nose to nose with a shelf when you walk in the sun room door. I told him . . I’ll get two but they’re both going to be totally for kitchen stuff! He said fine. Ordered!

My plan is to take the grain mill, the pressure cooker and the slow cooker out there and put them on the wooden countertop part. There will be room for other things that I can put there I’m sure. My Vitamix stays in the cabinet over the fridge. I don’t use it a lot but when I do, I have to climb up on a stool to get to it and that isn’t convenient because it’s pretty heavy. On the shelves, I’ll probably keep the Vitamix, the electric steamer, the waffle maker – a bunch of the electric gadgets that I may use once or twice a month. Even though I’ll bring them from the sun room into the kitchen (except for the pressure cooker and the slow cooker) to use them, it will be nice to have them handy and close. I may even take some of the bowls that I don’t use often but want to keep handy and put them on the shelves.

Also, back in September, I ordered this little rack from Hobby Lobby.

That space there by the wall oven is kinda wasted space so putting something there made sense. I have loved having the whisks, the rubber spatulas and the tongs all there. It’s been perfect having those big spice containers there too. They were on the very top shelf of a cabinet and again, I had to get the step stool to reach them before. I was thinking . . if I had something bigger there, I could put more stuff on it. I have about three times that many large containers of spices and the rest of them are still on the top shelf.

I found this rack of shelves at Wayfair.

I think it’s 63″ tall, 24″ long and 12″ deep . . which fits almost perfectly in that spot and still leaves room to get your hand in easily to turn the light switch on and off. I think I read that each shelf can hold 44 pounds. I doubt I put that much on any of them but I’ll put spices, probably two deep on one shelf. I may put big glass bowls on one shelf. I’m going to get some wicker baskets and put rubber spatulas, tongs and whisks in those. They take up so much room in drawers.

Between the two baker’s racks in the sun room and this unit in the kitchen, I’m going to have so much more storage space!