After spending years in a succession of one-butt kitchens, I am currently enjoying a somewhat spacious kitchen setup. However, even with a lot of room, I've discovered that I still need to economize on storage. Here are five somewhat surprising things you don't necessarily need to keep in your kitchen proper.
Of course, much of this depends on your setup. Where you eat, what kind of storage you have in other parts of your house, whether or not you have a pantry or a basement will all influence how much you can play with your kitchen storage. The main point is that just because you use something in the kitchen doesn't mean you have to store it there.
1. Cookbooks
Unless you have unlimited shelf space to use up, it's not necessary to store all of your cookbooks in the kitchen, especially if you are like me and own dozens and dozens. If you have the space, keep maybe a half dozen of your most used cookbooks in the kitchen and store the rest in another area of the house.
2. Dishes
Store your dishes where you eat. In many of my smaller kitchens, this meant the dining room or on shelves in the dining area of the kitchen. The exception would be a few glasses near the sink for drinking water and coffee/tea mugs.
3. Refrigerator
This one might be controversial for some, but if you have a large pantry or enclosed porch off of your kitchen, then moving the refrigerator there will free up quite a bit of space and bulk. I have seen several kitchens really open up when the refrigerator was moved to an adjacent porch or pantry.
4. Pantry
Store bulk goods and all those cans of stewed tomatoes you got on sale in your pantry, basement or garage. Keep only smaller amounts in your kitchen proper, replenishing as needed.
5. Cleaning Supplies
Daily cleaning supplies like dish soap and counter spray (if you use it) are fine, but it's not necessary to keep all of your cleaning supplies in the kitchen.
What typical kitchen items do you store in other parts of your house?
Related: Small Space Solutions: Narrow Rolling Pantry Shelves
(Image: Faith Durand)
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I'm not sure about the "dishes" one..whenever I guests over for a dinner party I like to plate the meals before serving at the table. For this reason it's obviously easier to store the dishes in the kitchen! I do agree about the cookbooks though...unless you have the room to display them (which I would love) they just take up too much space, and really, how often do we use them?!!
yes! i had my mixer, dishes, juicer, so many huge items out on the counter...til i realized, i have this amazing sideboard from pier 1 in the dining room...out went all this huge appliances into the storage where no one could see anything and now the counters look good!
I don't have a "one butt" kitchen, but I may as well, it only has a few cabinets. I keep my food in my laundry room cabinets.
Cleaning supplies? Those are in a cabinet in my parking space, except for supplies used daily. My cookbooks are in the living room.
I moved my kitchen appliances to a shelf in the front hall closet.
I have a couple "dish" areas in my kitchen. I have a main plate and bowl supply above the washer. I have a coffee and dessert area, which really just needs to go to goodwill, except for maybe a few coffee cups. Again, due to space, there's another area for glassware.
I also have a cabinet for baskets of odds and ends, little gadgets that take up too much room in the drawers, and "take away" - things like thermos and my soup bowl with a microwave lid.
It probably isn't the most efficient, but it's working okay, and I don't have to have much on the counters.
Where is the cabinet in the photo from? That is exactly what I have been looking for!
Along those same lines, I moved my place mats, napkins and other serving linens out of the kitchen and to the area where we actually eat and use them. It opened up an entire drawer-and a deep one at that. And my cookbooks are also in a bookshelf in the dining area. Much easier to access that way.
I have a bakers rack full of kitchen items in my dining room. I use it to store big things like my stand mixer, mixing bowl sets, crock pot, and dutch oven as well as things that are infrequently used or that don't fit in the cabinets well - large cookie sheets, fancy serving platters, and all my bakeware is stacked on an eye-level shelf for easy access. I have a sort of half wall between my kitchen and dining room and I've been thinking about putting up some floating shelves for dishes.
My china cabinet, which I inherited in 20 years ago, is a working piece of furniture; I use it every day, but then I use my china every day, too. Two of the shelves have platter grooves on the back edge which are enormously useful, and I use the two drawers for flatware and flatware serving pieces. The bottom storage is for table linens and the silver chest.
The china cabinet is classic 1960s Early American, in maple (naturally), and is not what I would have bought for myself, but it's a lovely piece of furniture and I have enjoyed using it. I would be in a real storage bind without it.
Um, that fridge thing seems really weird and space specific. The others I can understand, the fridge not so much
I've thought about storing china in the dining room where we use it -- but it gets washed in the kitchen. Until I can move the dishwasher out to the dining room, too, it is going to be easiest to store dishes in the kitchen.
I've never had a shelf in the kitchen for cookbooks and that works out fine. And it's not a storage issue, but we had a leak under our sink and I had to clean up a bunch of mold. Decided right then that I would stop storing cleaning items in there. Even without the mold it was just so icky -- stray bits of garbage always seem to make their way to the back of the sink cabinet. We keep our garbage can in there, so now that is all the cabinet holds except for dish soap and cleanser that is in nearly daily use.
I agree (that is disagree) about shifting the fridge. Food = Kitchen in my book. And I think cleaning stuff should be in the room it cleans, even if that means duplicating bottles and cloths. All my everyday recipes are in a plastic-sleeve notebook so cookbooks can store wherever works. But my pet hate is having to have the washer/dryer in the kitchen.I've never had space for a utility room yet but I'm going to try to get creative with my next move. Food and laundry don't mix.
I also keep my cookbooks in the dining nook off of the kitchen, and I've considered (but decided against) moving the refrigerator into the living room just to get more counter space.
My favorite thing that I've moved out of the kitchen is the trash can. I bought a really classly looking one with a lid, keep it clean, and leave it in the dining nook (which is really not that far from the kitchen anyhow). It freed up SO MUCH SPACE in the kitchen cabinets, it was great.
I'd also like to know where that cabinet is from!
I believe the cabinet is from IKEA and is no longer available. :( Click on Faith's name on the image link above and it will take you to the post where she talk about it.
My current apartment's refrigerator is in the dining room, which was a little weird at first, but is actually really fine after getting used to it. I just use a cookie sheet to haul whatever I need into the kitchen before cooking, and put stuff away as I'm done using it. The fridge does technically fit in the kitchen, but it would block three cupboards and leave me no room next to my stove for a small island/prep area. This solution works for me!
I have a very small 2 butt kitchen. I learned early on when buying furniture to stick to those with drawers and doors. Smaller pieces that would fit my home that would be functional for storage. In my coat closet I placed 2 narrow shelving units that fit sideways on one side wall. It stores all cookbooks, salad spinner, clay cooker, blender, coffee maker (not used often), and other awkward items. I placed a 2 tier shelving piece on half of the closet shelf and use it for all of my baking ware. On the other side my stand mixer and food processor have a home. In my tiny front hallway; a shallow floor cabinet holds all vases and smaller items like the gravy separator, small spring form pans, decorative serving things... In the same hallway a narrow chest with 6 drawers holds my scarfs and gloves, kitchen towels, decorative baking supplies, doggie treats, & misc. stuff; each in their own drawer. My mother's very old 3 drawer chest (that I painted black) with marble top sits in my living room and stores a lot of my serving pieces, linens, candles and much more. My grandmother's 1920 circa buffet in my dinning area holds place mats, the other half of my dishes, serving pieces, her silver services, wine rabbit and such. All in all, yes, storing outside of the kitchen is a great solution to keeping a less stressful life.
The cabinet is IKEA Bergsbo.
I like to keep the dishes in the kitchen for plating purposes too, but the eating spoons, forks, and knives can be kept out in the dining room.
Before we got married my husband collected all different types of glasses, so all my extra storage is taken up with those (that we never use). Otherwise these are great ideas. I do keep all, except one, of my cookbooks in cupboards in the dining room and it saves a lot of space. Mostly I just try to minimize on *stuff*!
We're about to reno our kitchen and we still haven't decided whether to keep the fridge in the kitchen or perhaps have it outside in the dining room close to the kitchen. Dilemmas! Having the fridge outside means breaking the so-called work triangle theory. Can anybody give advice? This article just makes me more confused. :)
I agree on the cookbooks.
Disagree on the dishes. They should be kept wherever you plate up food, not where you eat it (though plating/eating area may be one and the same, depending on your space).