How We Improved Our Kitchen with a Tool Cart & Vertical Storage

Who cooks and eats here: Leela Cyd & David Kilpatrick
Where: Santa Barbara, California
See their kitchen: Leela & David’s Quirky Cottage Kitchen

This kitchen was challenging in its lack of pantry and the fact that there are very few walls, and the existing walls are met with doors to other rooms (bathroom and tiny office), so a large shelving unit wasn’t practical.

Instead we took note from my

parents’ kitchen

This cart was about $300 from Home Depot and we can take it to our next home (and maybe use it in a proper place such as a garage, for tools!). We kitted it out with a new butcher block from IKEA and installed a little fruit and produce basket; it has served our needs very well.

• Find it: 37 in. 5-Drawer Mobile Workbench with Solid Wood Top, $249 at Home Depot

I wanted a pot rack but our ceilings are pretty tall and there wasn’t an obvious place for one, so David created a small, tidy shelf with hooks for all my daily use pots and cooking items, plus a little bit of our weird curio collection (Thai dancing dolls from Chiang Mai, man under umbrella from Mumbai, and fortune-telling hand from Chinatown in NYC).

This zone holds my most frequently used items: measuring cups, Mexican salad spoons, small pans, and box grater. It’s made from reclaimed furniture wood found at a recycling center and the hooks have been collected over the years from random hardware stores.

For small kitchens, vertical storage is the way to go!

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