Regina Yunghans

The ol' kitchen-chair-turned-backward setup worked just fine in the '70s, but today's helpful platforms are definitely safer!

Get out the tape measure, stand up straight, and bend your elbows!

Dust it at least once a week!

There’s this vertical base cabinet in my kitchen that I initially thought would be perfect for storing baking sheets, trays, and cutting boards, but as the skinny cabinet got crowded, it became increasingly difficult to find what I needed. Then, once I did find what I needed, removing said item from the cabinet inevitably created an avalanche. What the cabinet needed was something that would prevent a domino effect when one item was removed.

You know how sometimes it’s easy to get carried away searching for the perfect product to end your woes? I initially did that with this cabinet. I tried a cute rail to mount on the door and store pot lids. It felt like the lids were going to tumble every time I opened the cabinet with the least bit of gusto (and I often do open this particular cabinet with a healthy dose of gusto). I tried a wooden rack for storing pot lids, too, but it took up too much surface area.

In our small kitchen, we like to keep everything up and off the countertops. That’s where this little cabinet comes into play. We don’t have many small appliances, yet their storage cabinet had somehow managed to fall into a state of chaos. I set out to straighten things up in a way that made the appliances and their accessories easy to access and easy to put away: Before, the cabinet simply “caught” whatever we “threw” at it.

Lacking an actual pantry closet, we use a couple of upper kitchen cabinets for the task. It’s a pantry in as much as it’s a place where we store nonperishable foods. But it’s never really been organized. Here, I take a look at helping these cabinets along when it comes to performing as a pantry. I hadn’t used organizing bins or trays in the cabinet before because I simply wasn’t convinced that they would provide better, more efficient storage. Boy, was I wrong.

I have a large dish cabinet that has taken on piles of prep bowls, odds-and-ends (like vitamins and water bottles!), and nice serving dishes that don’t see much use because they’re buried. This is just one of the cabinets in my kitchen that needs help. I’ve set out to pare down, categorize, shift to underused cabinets, and provide easy access to everything. Erratic piles, be gone!

If you’re like me, you’re going to need most of your holiday prep time in the kitchen. No time to fuss over complicated centerpieces for the table! But there are lots of ways to make the holiday table beautiful without sinking all of your time into it. Here are a few simple ideas. Make mason jar luminaries like these from Cattales on Etsy. Find a pretty glass container and fill it with bulb ornaments. Cut a pine branch and put it in water. Voila!

The pickle has long had a special place on the Christmas tree. Take the cool cuke’s lead and check out these other food-themed ornaments for your tree! Fig Ornament, Sur la Table, $4.86 Grilled Cheese Sandwich Glass Ornament, Bronner’s, $8.99 Onion Purple Glass Ornament, Bronner’s, $14.99 Short Stack of Pancakes, ChristmasOrnaments.com, $13.99 Mostaccioli Christmas Ornament, OrnamentShop.com, $13.

I’m a fool for a kitchen with marble countertops, glass tile, and oversized pendant lighting. But when I look at my own typical, eight-foot-ceilinged kitchen, I sigh. There will never be room for oversized pendants in a kitchen with eight-foot ceilings, but that doesn’t mean resorting to ugly, domed surface-mounts (sometimes referred to as “boob lights“). Here are 10 fixtures that will have you asking, “Pendants? What pendants?” in no time.

I’ve always loved a window over the kitchen sink. My grandparents’ house had one; my parents’ house does, too. It’s a wonderful detail that provides a pastime while doing the dishes. So, what to do when you find yourself (somehow!) in a home without a window above the sink? Try a mirror!

If you should find yourself in the fortunate position of adding on a kitchen or building a new house, I want to put an idea out there: horizontal windows. Out of all the spaces in your home, a long, low strip of horizontal windows is perfect for the kitchen. Here’s why. When you’re in the kitchen, you’re often bustling about. From refrigerator to counter to stove and back, the kitchen is the one room that’s mainly about moving instead of remaining in one place.

Herringbone wood floors were once reserved for public spaces in the home, like the parlor. Such intricate flooring would not have been installed in a private room like the kitchen. But today, the kitchen has stepped it up as a gathering and entertaining space where guests are likely to frequent. Maybe that’s why we’re seeing such a surge of fancy, herringbone-patterned flooring in the once-humble kitchen!

At summer’s end, I often find myself desperate to hold onto some of its treasures. You’ll find me preserving extra garden tomatoes in the freezer, making pesto… and dreaming of setting up the dining area with a touch of the outdoors: Wicker! Here are a few examples of wicker chairs in the dining area, bringing breezy, natural style into your space year-round.

I’ve been growing tomatoes this summer, and it’s been a fruitful and delicious endeavor but not without a little garden drama. Just a few days into harvesting the ripening tomatoes, we ran into trouble. I went to the garden one morning to find tomatoes strewn around the yard. Seemingly untouched, the still-green fruits (and a few ripe ones) sat in the grass with no sign of tooth marks. What (or who) had done this!?

Whether repurposing an actual one or copying their style in new kitchen cabinetry, we love the old-fashioned vibe brought to these kitchens and dining rooms by pie safes: In the first two kitchens pictured, the cabinetry has punched metal panels that give a nod to the pie safe. Whether in all white or a bright hue, we love this look and think it’s a possible idea for updating existing cabinets on a budget. Third, we see a major appliance, the refrigerator, fit with pie-safe-style panels.

Know a new mom? Or are you a new mom yourself? One-handed snacks in the first few weeks can really save the day. When nursing around the clock, new moms expend the calories of a bricklayer. Treat a new mom you know (or treat yourself) with any of these simple-to-eat snacks. One-handed snacks make it easy for mom to get some nourishment while giving baby some too. Nursing generally takes one hand and leaves another free for one-handed typing, snacking, or reading.

Most dining rooms have a pendant or chandelier wired in over the table. When this isn’t the case, there are alternatives for lighting like wall-mounting or using a table lamp, but then that focal point over the gathering space is lost. If there’s plenty of light in your dining room, but you still feel like something’s missing, here’s an idea: hang a mobile over the table! We love this fun idea.

Have you heard of braiding onions? It’s sort of like French braiding hair: take a dozen or so onions that still have their stalks attached, and, starting with three, gradually work more in as you go. The result is a beautiful, natural chain of onions that can be hung in your kitchen and taken from as needed. Braided onions aren’t just aesthetically pleasing; the technique of braiding and hanging them provides better air circulation around the onions than storing in a bin.

I loved the tiny studio apartment I had with a separate kitchen. After moving to a one-bedroom that exchanged a separate kitchen for a bedroom (this kitchen was a galley along one side of the living room), I came to realize exactly just how much I appreciated a kitchen separate from the living room. But these examples of kitchens in living rooms make it look quite doable, even in less than 200 square feet.

Soffits can be tricky things to deal with in a kitchen. You often can’t remove them, so the question becomes how do you best cover them up or help them blend into the rest of the kitchen? Here, we’ve rounded up 10 ways to disguise a soffit. A kitchen soffit is usually a boxy structure built to hide wiring, pipes, or other mechanicals, or to fill the space between the top of your cabinets and the ceiling.

Who else thinks it’s a drag to unload the dishwasher? Of all the kitchen chores, it’s my least favorite. But this one little tip has made the task less tedious. As we fill the dishwasher’s utensil basket over the course of several days, we arrange utensils by type as they go in. Have ice cream for a snack after dinner? The spoon goes with the rest of the spoons when you put it in the dishwasher. Grab a knife to make a sandwich? Toss it into the knife compartment of the basket.

Well, hello there! It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve updated you on my garden. One big recent change is the addition of trellises and stakes, which I’m sharing with you today. We recently trimmed trees in the yard, which left us with lots of firewood, but also spindly, twiggy pieces. We took the longest of those and constructed pea trellises for the two squares of thriving snow pea plants (see pic up top).

“I made a rookie mistake last year —- I started from seed,” a friend quipped as I asked about her square-foot gardening experience. Oops! That’s what I opted to do this year, also my first at-home gardening project.

This week is not very picture-heavy, as all of the action is taking place below the soil. So, I thought I’d take the chance to share a cute pic of my gardening assistant helping me out, following up the seed planting with a little water. (For the record, he was watering the already-sprouting pea plants here. I was weary of him washing away the new seeds with that watering can!) Plant seeds in the ground on April 10. Plant plants in the ground on May 10.

If you’re trying to sidestep plastics in kitchen storage, there are lots of material choices out there. Depending on what you want to store, think glass, ceramic, wood, or stainless steel. From high to low, mass-produced to handmade, here are some beautiful options: Glasslock Snapware containers, $42 at Amazon (Read Faith’s review here.

Removing the doors from a few choice upper cabinets is a simple way to introduce open shelving to your kitchen. The beautiful kitchen pictured above inspired to integrate the look by tiling open cabinet backs. While the cabinets shown above appear to be actual open shelves hanging on a tiled wall, tiling the back of an open cabinet could achieve similar results. Over at 320 Sycamore, the backs of glass-doored cabinets were tiled with penny tile (pictured above).

Last week I showed you my plans for a raised-bed garden. This week, let’s talk about how we built the beds. When we demolished a rotting deck off of the rear of our home two years ago, there were two cedar beams used as railings. Even then, we knew we wanted to use the 4x8x12-foot-long beams to build a raised bed planter, so we stored them away and saved them for a season when we had time to finally get around to planting a garden: This is the year!

I grew up in a family with a huge garden, which might have something to do with why I haven’t gardened on my own until now. I’m so excited to get back to it, though, with this small kitchen garden of only 4×7-ish feet. The garden will be steps from the back kitchen door and near a small herb bed I started last year with chives, tarragon, sage, thyme and mint. Here’s the plan.

Brass in the kitchen is one thing when you’re talking faucets, knobs, or lighting, but check out these three kitchens with all metallic cabinets! The image that started our search for metallic cabinets is from a kitchen designed by Kelly Wearstler. Isn’t it beautiful — and kind of wild? The cabinets above, which we first wrote about here, appear to be made out of hammered metal, which creates a lovely shimmer and reflectivity in this narrow space.