New Kitchen Layout

While we’ve been waiting for the renovations to proceed, I’ve been looking for ways to keep my spirits up (it’s hard living in chaos), and since I am excited about the new kitchen, and the cabinets are finally getting installed in the kitchen, I thought it might be fun to explore where I would put everything when the everything is done and we can move all our stuff back in to the kitchen…

I’m actually pretty excited to start organizing things… Does that make me a complete dork?  Probably, but so be it…

The List

First step is to make a list of all the things that I want to store in the kitchen, or all the “stations” that I want to have… Basically, I just thought back to every cupboard that  I had in the old set-up, and made a list from that… Here’s what I came up with:

• dishes: plates, bowls, glasses, mugs, serving platters
• regular cutlery
• cooking utensils & knives
• pots & pans
• baking dishes, casserole dishes, muffin tins, roasting pans
• mixing bowls & serving bowls
• measuring cups & measuring spoons
• lunch containers
• plastic wrap, tin foil, ziplock bags, etc.
• pantry food (canned / dry goods)
• bulk & baking food
• coffee, tea & other drinks
• spices
• oils & vinegars
• small appliances (mixer, blender, food processor, coffee maker, kettle, toaster)
• placemats & napkins
• tea towels & cloths
• oven mitts
• coasters, hot pads & trivets (I don’t know that I’ve ever used the word trivet in my day-to-day life, but I’m not actually sure what they are called… I think I just say pot holder, which isn’t actually the right word… And to think English is my first language… my lack of vocabulary would probably indicate otherwise. Ha ha ha!)
• paper plates, napkins & party supplies
• pet food & supplies
• cleaning supplies & garbage bags
• grocery bags
• cook books
• candles & candle holders (these were on our sideboard in the dining room, but not sure that piece of furniture will fit anymore…)
• liquor cabinet (again, was on sideboard… now?)

The Layout

Once my list was created, I printed out the kitchen layout design and started playing around with post-it notes to find where things would go…  Here’s what I’ve come up with:

General Kitchen Layout

This is the layout from the top, just to give you an idea of how things are oriented.

The sink side of the kitchen.

The three drawers on the left are the closest to the dining room, so I figured things that would be used at the table should be stored there… And the pet stuff… Well, it needed to go somewhere, and they will likely be fed out by the sliding door that is on that side, so it might work.  Not sure all the food containers will fit in that drawer though… And I figured that glasses and water bottles around the sink makes sense for getting water.  Although, now that I’ve just written that down, I remember that our new fridge has water in the door… Hmmm…  And yes, there are a couple drawers here that haven’t been assigned… I’m sure that I’ve forgotten something…

The fridge side of the kitchen.

I figured that the corner between the sink and the fridge could be the drink station… So all the hot drink making stuff can go here.  The pantry has some roll out drawers behind the door, so I’m thinking that’s a great place to store food.  It’ll be easy to pull them out and see what’s at the back.  No forgetting about food and having it go bad!  The garbage bags might move to near the sink where the garbage actually is… And I might replace that with my cloth shopping bags, since I seem to have left them out of this equation completely.

The stove side of the kitchen.

Part of me didn’t even want to include the drawer below the oven, but it is useful for some things… And yes, you’ll notice that nothing has been assigned for the cabinet above the stove.  I am likely not able to reach much of that cabinet myself, so I’m leaving that for things that don’t get used often, or don’t fit somewhere else because they are too tall… I might have more storage than I need… Oh, I just thought of something that I didn’t put anywhere… My water and juice jugs… Maybe they will end up there?

The dining room side of the kitchen.

I love drawers in the kitchen.  At the townhouse we lived in before this house, the kitchen was mostly drawers and I loved it!  I’m not 100% sure on this layout, mostly because I’m not sure how everything will actually fit in to these drawers, but it’s what I’ll start with and see how it goes…

Looking back to the kitchen from the dining room.

Our liquor and such was stored in the dining room before, so keeping it on that side of the counter sort of made sense to me.  There is only 1 cabinet that faces the dining room, the rest is just the backs of the drawers from the other side.

The Implementation

I’m still a ways away from actually putting things in to the kitchen, but I think things are starting to come together.  I’ll do a post soon with an update on the status of the renovations.

I have a couple rolls of shelf/drawer liner that I bought to update the old kitchen with, but I never got around to it, so I’ll be sure to put that in all the drawers before I put things in so we can keep them nice.

Once I start moving things in to the drawers and cabinets, I’ll think about what sort of organizing bins I need, and I’m planning a trip to IKEA to do a shopping trip.  I don’t want to do the shopping before I move things in though, so I can actually take stock of what I need, and how things work.

My sister just did her kitchen renovation a couple years ago, and she says that the layout and organization of everything is still a work in progress… Hopefully I can get it sorted out pretty decently a bit faster than that.  LOL!

What do you think?  Have I forgotten something in my list?  Would you put things in a different location than what I’ve laid out?  How did you decide where to put things in your kitchen?

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