10/8/2013: Kitchen Reorganization

I spent the weekend reorganizing my kitchen.  Now I wish I had taken before photos, but I didn't, so I will just tell you about the before.  Before, my cupboards were so packed that I had everything stacked up and wedged together.  Whenever I wanted something out of the cupboard I had to move at least two other things to get to it.  My pots and pans were all shoved into a lower cupboard.   There were two bad things about that.  First, when I wanted to cook I had to dig around in the cupboard to find the right pan.  Second, my pans were stacked on top of each other which was causing them to get beat up.  My blender and mixer were on the counters on either side of my stove because they were the only counters with enough head room to accommodate them.  Unfortunately, these counters are very small and these large appliances took up most of the available space.  I also had a my stove top utensils in a crock sitting next to the stove. 

Ever since we moved into the house I have been frustrated by the lack of room for my pot rack.  There is no place in my kitchen to hang it.  I have spent many an hour staring at the ceiling and contemplating where I could possibly hang my pots.  I don't like having my pots under the counter.  It is so much more convenient if you do not have to open a cupboard door when you are cooking.

Finally, after years of puzzling about it, inspiration struck.  We went to Bed Bath and Beyond a couple of weekends ago and I saw a pot rack that was mounted to the wall.  It didn't curve out, but ran straight along the wall, a few inches away from it.  As soon as I saw it, I knew I could make something that would be custom to my kitchen that would solve my problem.  The store-bought solution would not work for me, it was too short.  I would not be able to fit enough pans on it, it was too expensive for what it was, and it would not hit my studs just right, but it gave me just enough of a hint to help me solve my problem.  I just had to figure out the details.  I had about a six foot section of wall space, under a shelf, that was not being used.  I had a little room close to my stove where I could hang the pans I use every day.  I had cabinets on either side of my stove that I could hang things from.  Ah, the wheels started turning.

At first, I thought I would use steel rods.  I bought a 4 foot section (the longest one available) and a 3 foot section.  But how to get it on the wall?  I was thinking brackets.  But as Jack and I wandered around Home Depot I didn't see anything I liked.  Then, what caught my eye?  Well, eye screws, of course!  The rod would thread right through them.  So we bought rods, eye screws, and hooks and headed home.  Unfortunately, I knew as soon as I started that the solution would not work.  I wanted my rod to be mounted on the 4 studs under my shelf, and I wanted it centered under the shelf.  The rod was too short, it would only reach three studs, so it would be off center.  Jack volunteered to go to a new store while I kept working on another aspect of my project.  He was persistent when he couldn't find a 5' or longer section of rod and started to wander around True Value.  Finally he called me and said, "How about pipe?"  Eureka!  Of course, pipe.  Copper pipe would be so cool.  And it is so much easier to cut than steel rod.  Yes, I said, 1/2 inch copper pipe would be perfect.

Jack came home with the copper pipe, which was beautiful, but it would not fit through my eye screws.  I guess 1/2" copper pipe is measured by the inside circumference and 1/2 inch steel rod is measured by the outside circumference.  So this time, I headed back to the hardware store.  What did I find?  Brass eye screws and hooks that fit perfectly with my copper pipe.  OK...now I was getting excited.  This project was starting to shape up. 

This what I ended up with:

I think this is an elegant solution.  The brass eye screws are drilled into studs.  The copper pipe threads through them.  There are no extra screws so it looks very clean.  Here is a close up photo.

The longer S hooks came from my old pot rack.  We found the shorter, brass S hooks at True Value Hardware.  I like the way the different lengths of hooks help stagger the pans on the wall.  I created an end cap for the pipe by sliding an expander over the end of the pipe, then putting a cap over the extender.  I did not want the caps to be permanent, or I would never be able to get the pipe out to polish it, so I held them on with tacky bonding material that we purchased from the craft store.  I love the result, practical and beautiful.  And look at all the room I have for pans.  This rail is about 10 feet from my stove, and on an opposite wall, so I wanted a few pans closer to home.  Check this out:

I can stand at my stove and reach these pans.  As you can see, I had previously created a solution for some of my spices and my knives.  This completes the wall.  The rack is this short because the pantry door opens to the left and hits just shy of where the pipe ends.

Then I needed a solution to get my utensils off the counter.  I had purchased thin steel rod for that purpose, but the copper looked so cool.  Jack suggested I try to find 1/4" copper pipe but I didn't think I would be able to find something that small.  He told me to go check out the feed to the humidifier for the furnace, so I did.   Hmm...1/4" copper tube...of course!  All I had to do was figure out a way to keep it from bending.  So back to the hardware store I went and sure enough, I found 2 foot long sections of copper tube, but it was flexible, too flexible.  I headed to the steel rod section and found a thin steel rod that slid into the copper tubing perfectly, making it straight as a rod...get it?  Straight as a rod?  Ha, ha.  OK, that was silly.

Anyway, the hacksaw we just bought and the work bench I bought many, many months ago came in handy for cutting the steel rod to length.  I found the perfect size brass eye screws, and...voila!  Check it out:

My utensils are off the counter.  Unfortunately, there was not such a neat cap solution for the copper tubing, so I had to get a little more creative to cap the ends of the tubes.  At the hobby store we picked up a couple of packages of unpainted game pieces.  I drilled the ends out, painted them the same color as the kitchen trim work, and slid them over the ends of the pipe.  I love the result:

Now isn't that just too cool?  I think it is!!

But, I was just getting started on this organization project.  I was bent on freeing up as much cupboard space as possible.  First, I took stuff out of my kitchen that I have not used in years and put it in a box headed for the basement.  Then I bought I few ready made cupboard organizing solutions and put them to use.  For the lids:

And for the spices:

And finally, my plates:

Look at all the space in that cupboard.  Before, you could not get to a bowl or a baking dish without unstacking the 10 things on top of it.  I am thrilled with all the space!!

Now my mixing bowls, serving bowls, and plastic containers are easy to get to:

And for my last photo; I was able to free up room in my decorative corner cupboard for my pretty mixing bowls, which I do use often, and a few other things.  I like the way this turned out:

All of this resulted in freed-up lower counter space.  My mixer and blender came off the counter top and went directly under the counter where I use them into a wide open cabinet.  The colanders moved away from the cabinet next to the stove and now live in a cabinet right by the sink.  Now that makes sense!!  All in all, my kitchen is now much better organized, everything is more accessible, and I have more counter space.  It's still not my dream kitchen, but it is functional.  It'll do, it'll do...

The flip side of having all this fun in my kitchen is that this took time, a lot of time.  I was working hard at it until about 11:00pm on Saturday and then I started right back to work at 7:30am on Sunday.  I worked on the project until about 4:30pm Sunday afternoon, at which time I went right into preparing our meals for the week.  I wasn't done cooking until after 9:00pm.  Did you catch the word exercise in there anywhere?  No?  I didn't either.  And I was exhausted!  I went to bed late, after chilling out for a little bit, and did not set my alarm.  Therefore, there was no exercise Monday morning either, and by the time I got to work on Monday I was in a bad mood.  I mean, a really foul mood.  I couldn't tell if it was stress, if I was getting sick, or if it was because I had not exercised for three days.  Perhaps it was a combination of the three, but I was leaning heavily on the lack of exercise as an explanation.  I had to find out, so when I got home from work yesterday I went for a 4 mile run.  Did I feel better afterwards?  Well, yes, I felt a little better, but I still did not feel great.  I had some house cleaning to do to get ready for my dad's and Kay's visit, so I got through that, but it was not with any bounce in my step.  I just felt blah.  This morning I woke up still feeling under the weather, though I will admit, the exercise seemed to help some.  There has been a bug going around work and I felt just bad enough that I knew staying home was the right thing to do.  My guess is a day of rest will be enough for me to bounce back quickly, rather than dragging myself to work, wearing myself out, and letting myself get really sick.  So today, I am taking the day off to get rested and well.  As bonus I had time to get this blog post up!!  Now, to get busy resting...