My Kitchen

A little while ago, Nancy from Little Homestead in Boise asked to see my kitchen, specifically, my food prep areas.  

I have a very small, galley-style kitchen.  When we purchased the house, it was listed as having an "eat in" kitchen, because on the right hand side of the kitchen (where we now have a pantry cabinet, an upright freezer, a pull-out storage shelf, and our refrigerator), the previous tenants had a cafe-style table with two chairs.  I mean, I guess that's technically an eat-in feature, but I don't think that's what that normally means in real estate listings.  The seller's realtor was trying to be clever, I think.

Here's my kitchen.  

Nothing about my kitchen is standard, and so we've had to be a little more creative with adding storage and functionality without spending a ton of money.  Renovating the kitchen has never been in the budget, although there has been some painting and some ripping up and replacing of linoleum.  

There are no drawers in my kitchen, probably because the counter is not a standard height.  The positive is that I don't have a "junk" drawer in my kitchen.  The bad news is that there is no utensil drawer, either.  I have a carousel for the cooking spoons and spatulas, and a cute little square storage box with canning jars for my flat ware.  Both are on top of the dishwasher.  

Having non-standard height counters also means that we can't have a regular, built-in dishwasher, even if I wanted one.  

I mean, I do want (and have) a dishwasher.  I just don't have a full-sized one.  At the front left of the picture above, on the black metal cart, is our counter-top half-sized dishwasher, which we purchased used for $100.  It is a real bargain.  

Also, it's half the size of a regular dishwasher, and it costs about a third of what running a full-sized dishwasher costs.  We don't wash pans or large dishes (like my mixing bowls) in the dishwasher.  Mostly it's for plates, jars, and flat wear.  

The dishwasher is portable, and I have to wheel the cart over the sink and attach it to my faucet.  But the bonus of having the dishwasher on the cart is more ... storage!!!  Which is a huge bonus in a small kitchen.

At the far end of the kitchen is the ...  

Pantry Room

We actually call this the "dog room", because it's where we feed the dogs.  There is a weird little angled wall with a built-in shelf that we use to store canned food and bulk spices.  I'm certain there is something behind the wall, that some previous owner was trying to hide or just didn't want to deal with - probably some sort of plumbing or pipe they couldn't remove (like for an old woodstove, perhaps).  I don't know, for certain, and I'm not going to tear up the walls to find out (yet).

Opposite the angled wall is a window.  We added another shelf for more canned goods storage, and we were gifted the bureau.  We use that bureau to store the kitchen towels and linens (like table cloths), cat food, some of my kitchen tools, like the vacuum sealer, and my soap making supplies.  

The louvered doors lead to a bedroom.   Our bottle return bin is next to the bureau.  Beside the bottle return bin is a wall that has an access door for the furnace, which is in a little room behind that red curtain in the first picture.  That room also has a water heater, our recycling bin, my mop, broom, and vacuum cleaner, and the cat litter box. 

Food Prep/counter top

This is my only counter, and I do all of my food prep, canning, etc. in that space.  Sometimes it's a little like playing Tetris, trying to can or cook big meals.   I have a cutting board that fits over half the sink, which I can use to extend the counter space.  

I added that shelf to the back of the counter, and honestly, it has made a world of difference in reducing the LOOK of the clutter on the counter, because rather than having a bunch of random jars just hanging out on the back of the counter, everything is contained under the shelf, or stored on top of it.  And it's the perfect place to keep the big jar of coffee for easy access at Oh-Dark-Thirty, when I get up to start my day.  

I keep recipes I use a lot on the fronts of the cabinets, but also taped inside the cabinet doors.  Having the recipes at eye level is easier than using a cookbook or my phone, and there's a fun story about that ... .  

The lowest cabinet over the counters has spices, mostly in jars.  Christmas 2019, I was making a gluten free, vegan cornbread for a relative, and I had the recipe on my phone, and my phone on the counter.  Glass spice jar meets glass phone face = not good.  

I hate replacing things for stupid reasons, especially electronics.

Appliances

We have an upright freezer.  We actually had to purchase a larger model than we had originally, which meant that we had less space along that wall. 

Originally, we had the appliances pushed up against the cabinet, but refrigerators and freezers put off a lot of heat.  Yeah - that surprised me, too!  The result was that the inside of the cabinet ended up getting warmer than it should be.  So, we moved the refrigerator and freezer over, which meant there was this strange little gap in between the freezer and the pantry cabinet.

At first, I wanted to custom build one of those pull-out shelves that look like a cabinet, except ... see air flow issue above.  A wooden "cabinet" would impede the air flow for the freezer.  

So, I measured the gap, and to my great delight, it was the perfect size for a metal shelf, which I put on wheels, and now I have a pull out storage unit.   

I, kind of, love it.  And it's perfect for all of my really big kettles, which I mostly use for canning.

I'm reading this book - Housewifery - which was written in the early part of the 20th Century - 1904, I think.  It's fascinating.  The first chapter is about designing a house for maximum efficiency, and I'm pretty certain that the person who wrote that book would be appalled at my kitchen space.  Or, maybe, not. 

I've spent a lot of time reorganizing and adding cabinets, and deciding the best placement for my appliances, and really, making very conscious choices about the size and type of appliance.  Like, we don't have a microwave, and I have very few small appliances (like food processors or bread machines).  I just don't have the storage space for them, and so I make choices, and I do most stuff by hand, like chopping, which is done with a knife, not a food processor.  

I took a lot of inspiration from looking through thousands of pictures of tiny houses, and while it's still not perfect, it works, for now.

In the case of my kitchen, the joke "Size doesn't matter.  It's what  you do with it," is completely accurate.  I've prepped dinner for 30+ people, hosted a Pampered Chef party for 10 in my tiny kitchen, and managed to feed my five children and my husband for the past 25 years.  I've also preserved all sorts of things in all sorts of ways including: fermenting, dehydrating, and canning.

In fact, just yesterday, we canned 14 pints and 3 quarts of peaches (25 lbs), and while we were canning peaches, I also made a peach cobbler for dinner.  

 

I have actually come to appreciate my tiny kitchen.  Everything is right within easy reach, which makes it highly efficient.  The only thing I would change about my kitchen is the sink.  I would like a deeper sink (or a taller faucet) for when I need to fill large pots.  And there is a small, narrow cabinet under the very small counter space on the right side of the sink.  If I had my way, I would replace that cabinet with drawers.

Otherwise, it's a great space, and it is, truly, both literally and figuratively, the "center" of my home.