The main storage area is on the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. At the left of the photo is a "mini-peninsula" with a couple of chairs where friends can sit and have drinks while I finish cooking; larger groups go to the patio or the living room.
The APPLIANCE GARAGE, with the tambour door, isn't very large but serves to keep the most frequently used pieces out of sight yet easily accessed. The power strip that runs along the backsplash continues into the appliance garage so the appliances remain plugged in. I can simply pull a piece out onto the counter in front of the garage, use it, then slide it back in. I'm not thrilled with the tambour door, which is quite stiff to operate, but given the available space, it was the reasonable choice. |
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The PLATE RACK for the everyday dishes takes up more room than the plates would if they were stacked, but it is so much more convenient to store them this way. It took the cabinetmaker a couple of tries to get it right: The first time, he had the dowels too deep; then he had them equally far apart (front-to-back), so the smaller dishes fell through; the third try was the magic one.
There wasn't supposed to be a SPICE CABINET (last wall cabinet on the right). I had intended the first two drawers under the appliance garage to be fitted with racks that hold the spice bottles on a slant; however, the cabinet-maker missed that point and made the drawers too shallow. Serendipitously, however, this 5½"-deep cabinet turned out to be ideal after I replaced most of the shelves with these |
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spice racks. There's another rack inside a door near the cooktop, and so there's adequate storage. |
| The PEGBOARD (below) for frequently used tools has been a standard feature in my previous kitchens, and I wasn't about to change now. In the old kitchen, this area of the counter was my prep area, and I planned to leave it that way in the new kitchen, so it made sense to put the pegboard here, where the old one was. As it turned out, my prep area in the new kitchen has shifted, by default as it were, to the peninsula, next to the sink. However, there was no other wall space for the pegboard anyway, and it's a couple of steps from my new prep area, so still handy enough.
As you can see, the pegboard was mounted too low, so that a lot of the tools hang down over the power strip and even the backsplash. For now I can live with it, but will raise it up higher in the not too distant future. |
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In the old kitchen, my KNIVES (below) were right at the prep area, either hanging on the pegboard or in a rack mounted on the door of the wall cabinet just above. So again, as with the whisks, spatulas, and so on, I wanted knife storage in the same area, and I really liked the idea of in-counter storage. Getting the idea executed, however, took a bit of doing.... Ideally, I wanted knife slots cut directly in the Corian, but that was nixed by the cabinetmaker. Instead, I bought knife rack inserts from Edlund, and sweet-talked him into cutting openings for them in the Corian countertop, next to the appliance garage and above the mixer lift cabinet, which has space for the projecting blades. And again, even though I'm not using this as my main prep area, it's worked out very well. Paring knives and peelers are kept in a drawer next to the sink, where they are most used. |
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The undercounter storage consists of drawers, except for the MIXER LIFT cabinet (on the left). I had allowed 12" for the width of this cabinet, but didn't realize that the hinges took up almost 1" when the door was open, and the Rev-A-Shelf lift mechanism took up another 1½" of width. As a result, the shelf holding the mixer ended up being only 9" wide, just barely large enough for my DeLonghi mixer, and a bit more wobbly than I'd like. Still, it works well enough, and it sure beats having to lift that Sherman tank!
I purposely had the lift mounted so that the mixer would be lower than the counter, making it easier to see inside the bowl and to add ingredients. The drawer pull at the front of the shelf really helps pulling the shelf out and up. |
All the DRAWERS are full-extension, which is such a luxury! The bottom drawer of each bank is extra deep, as in the photo on the right, to accommodate small appliances and other bulky items. I had the cabinetmaker make dividers for these drawers, and use plastic slides (from Lee Valley) to hold the dividers. The neat thing about these slides is that they can be moved easily, to rearrange the drawer dividers as needed.
Pots & pans and other cooking essentials are stored in or near the cooking area. |
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