Earlier today Dana offered some thoughts on organizing your cookbook collection. She admits that how you choose to organize your cookbooks is all about personal preference, but if you need some visual inspiration, where better to look than our Kitchen Tour archives? Here's a quick peek at how 15 different cooks find ways to store their beloved cookbooks in the kitchen.

I cook a lot. These past couple of weeks, for instance, I've been cooking through all the un-photographed recipes in Bakeless Sweets and shooting them for the book's website. The amount of dishes generated by these 75 recipes has been mountainous. So this clutter of dishes expresses how my kitchen looks, most of the time (and actually, this isn't too bad, in comparison! I will under no circumstances, however, show you my stovetop right now.). And yet I have an open kitchen, with the mess on display for everyone to see. (See my whole kitchen renovation reveal here.)

So can you guess what the most important element of my open kitchen is? 

Lauren Scott has no trouble telling you how to find her Petaluma, California home. "It's the only one on the block that looks like a giant Easter egg," she says. She and her husband live in a big, pink Victorian-style house that can’t be missed. When I arrived she welcomed me inside and showed me her kitchen. Little did I know I'd also get the chance to adore her beautiful, four-month-old baby girl and eat a delicious lunch she whipped up fresh from her garden. It was a good day.

It's always fascinating to see what stirs up the most vehement comments on our family of sites. And over at Apartment Therapy, there is one sure way to start a spat: Talk about organizing books by color! And yet I think that it actually can be a great option, especially for cookbooks! Why is it so controversial, and why do I like it in spite of this? Read on for more, plus a really awesome picture of cookbooks organized by color...

Aimee and Rene's Brooklyn home has a lot of charm. Rene is a chef, so we imagine the home kitchen must see a lot of action. And who wouldn't want to spend time in such a space? Rene actually built the kitchen cabinets himself, and the other details — the mint green walls, the black and white checkerboard floor tiles — make the whole thing feel sweet, cozy, and a little vintage.

We've shared our love for garbage bowls before, but that devotion may only be because we don't have this: a trash chute built right into the countertop! The idea behind a garbage bowl is to have somewhere to toss yours scraps while you're cooking, so how convenient to be able to just slide them into a hole and send them right into the trash or compost bucket below!

As a child, Daniela spent summers at her grandparent's country cottage outside of Prague. Now she fills her home with sentimental objects and collections passed down to through the generations. One of those collections — her grandmother's bundt pans — is on display in her Newport, Rhode Island kitchen: "Looking at the bundt pans that my grandma used," she tells Apartment Therapy, "brings back that smell of fresh-baked bundt cake and my grandfather’s aftershave; such distinct smells just flood in."

I'm married to a scientist, so that fact that I haven't thought of this until now is kind of embarrassing. I currently have a 1000ml Pyrex beaker (well, technically a flask) that I brought home from a wedding. (The bride and groom — also scientists — used them as flower vases at the reception.) I'd been using it as a vase, too, when suddenly it dawned on me. These are actually perfect prep tools for cooking! They're non-porous, heat-, cold-, and crack-resistant, have easy-to-read measurements on the side, and a spout for pouring. So why aren't more people using them in the kitchen? Here are 3 reasons why we should all start: 

How do you organize your kitchen linens? If I'm being honest, I'll admit my system is a little haphazard. I have cloth napkins in a pile at the end of the kitchen counter, while my tea towels and wash clothes are stacked in one of the cabinets — and quite messily, I might add! I like this idea much better. Keeping everything in a basket is so much nicer and neater. I also like seeing the colors and patterns peeking out!

Loft kitchens can feel cold and cavernous, but this kitchen is anything but! It's colorful and full of life. Want to emulate some of it in your own kitchen? Here are sources to help you get the look. (Fill in the blanks in the comments!)