A Tour of my Home - Kitchen

 ** To view other rooms in my home, start here **

This is probably the room I spend the most time in besides the living room. We eat pretty clean and healthy, so all of my dinner cooking is from scratch. This is also the room most in need of an update. Not sure why they dropped the ceiling to 7 feet! We've painted the cabinets twice. The appliances were bought last year, but everything else is original to when we bought this house 16 years ago. We will remodel it eventually! The items on the counter on the right side of the sink include a food scale, a utensil holder for overflow,  and a ceramic dish which holds our phone chargers and various papers. Jim and I sit here every morning. Jim eats breakfast and I drink my coffee and we share stories from the news or Facebook.

I recently purchased two anti-fatigue mats since I spend a lot of time preparing food. Some nights, I am cutting, preparing and cooking for up to 2 hours depending on the dish! I highly recommend them - they have made a huge difference in how I feel when standing so long. I purchased 2 sizes - you can see the longer one - Butterfly Anti-Fatigue 24 by 70 Inch Quatrefoil Kitchen Comfort Mat, Antique - in the photo above. The smaller one - Butterfly Anti-Fatigue 20 x 39 Inch Quatrefoil Kitchen Comfort Mat, Antique - is in front of the sink. Here is a close-up picture of the pattern. I love them!

The pantry is to the left of the picture. See the recycle bag hanging on the door knob? This is the easiest way to take care of it for us!

Now, this is the inside of the pantry. Less used appliances are on the top shelf and I try to group items by type. Notice I didn't straighten this up ... I know where everything is now so I didn't want to mess that up - ha!

You will see that I do not subscribe to the "empty counters" philosophy. Items used often stay out. I have a smoothie almost daily and this Bosch mixer is what I use to start up my bread. Next to the mixer are 2 items I use daily - the plastic cookbook holder and the dry erase board. If someone needs me to pick up an item or remind me to do something, they know to write it on the board! Weekly menu and coupons are on the fridge.

The other counter area holds cooking utensils and my 2 coffee makers. Yes, I have two! I bought my Ninja thinking I would get rid of the Keurig, but I find the Keurig pods so handy that I can't bring myself to get rid of it! However, in switching over to healthier coffee, I may need to find a new home for it soon. The blue dish holds items we use almost daily.

I have found that using Lazy Susans in my cupboards makes it easy to find items I am needing. One cabinet holds our daily meds and vitamins, while the other has 2 Lazy Susans holding my spices which are arranged in alphabetical order.

Continuing in our circle through the living area, we will go to the dining room and sitting area!