Apartment Organization - Kitchen

One of my biggest frustrations in Italy was the lack of organization in our apartment.  Honestly, we tried really hard, but the limitations imposed by the landlord and the stuff she considered part of the furniture rental restricted us a great deal.  Ultimately when we moved out, a huge weight was lifted off our shoulders and I knew we'd have the chance to improve in the Netherlands.  

In moving here I have felt from the very beginning that the Netherlands represents a blank slate for us for home organization and it is becoming a reality.  In just one month of living here, we've leaped so far ahead of where we were in Italy.  In this post, I want to show you some of the ways we have managed to clean up our life, declutter (to the best of our ability), and organize! Unfortunately, I don't have many before pictures as I didn't think I'd be writing a blog post on it... !

This will be a multiple part post so I can describe why I chose to organize.  You may not agree, but this is what works for me.  Today's post will focus on the KITCHEN. 

I love anything food and, as you might imagine, I also like to cook.  One of our criteria for the new apartment in the Netherlands was to have a full kitchen.  Well...the apartment we ultimately chose (for other very good reasons) came with a small kitchen, but we accepted the kitchen's size because there was plenty of room to expand and make it our own.  Shortly after we acquired a car we headed to IKEA to see what was available.  I already had ideas in my head, but when we arrived in the kitchen section at IKEA we saw this beauty and our dreams inflated quickly.

IKEA dream kitchen island

This picture isn't great as it wasn't intended to be published, but there are three sets of drawers that can be customized with the typical IKEA organization stuff and the back side includes an eat-in/breakfast area.  We saw the price that was placed on the top of the unit and assuming it was the total price we decided that with our relocation money this was a great solution to our problem.  Well, not so fast my friend...the next day, after measuring the size to ensure it would fit as we desired in our kitchen, we went back to IKEA to purchase it.  After pricing it all out, it turned out that the price published was only for the counter top and two sides (which are counter tops, just mounted on the side)... adding the cabinets puts the whole thing somewhere way above what we were willing to spend!  Oh man, I was frustrated.  We went through a couple more iterations to try to bring the price down, but then we were reminded that this thing needs to be nailed into the ground or the side wall.  Of course, we don't have permission to do anything to to the walls and certainly not the floor... double frustration! The gentlemen helping us were very nice and showed us some pre-fabricated items that we could purchase that could address our problem.  We chose one of these and have set it up in our kitchen.  Technically I think it should also be nailed into the ground or side wall, but I have put heavy things in the bottom to stabilize it.  The drawers are not dampened (which was a nice feature of the other island), and they sometimes slam shut jiggling the island a bit, but it seems to be ok.  As you can see, it does have an eat-in/breakfast area, but we need to purchase chairs still, ha!

new kitchen island - side view

new kitchen island - front view

So, what have I done to organize the kitchen?  First and foremost, it was incredibly important to me to have the spices visible and readily available.  Originally, in the island we first chose there was essentially this solution, but you had to buy the plastic/rubber holders so the jars stay in place.  Obviously, those won't work for this pre-fab unit, but I implemented the same idea here anyway.  It's not perfect in that I can't fit all of the same type and size of jar I want and fill the whole thing up uniformly, but it works and I can fit in my other non-conforming spice containers :D.  The spice jars are also from IKEA which we purchased while in Italy (note, in Italy we had them hanging on a rack where they could also be seen easily, but we only had space for one rack which was not enough).   Obviously this has a limit and to be honest we are above this limit (that is, I have extra amounts of these same spices that need to be stored).  For now, I have them neatly packed away sitting on top of the fridge. 

spices in kitchen island

Next, knives.  My husband is in love with knives and I have been blessed by this fascination.  We have so many that to pile them on top of each other in the available space next to the utensils was not, well, organized (we did this for a short while before the kitchen island was purchased)! I have split them by size (short and long). The long ones are in the island where I do most of my chopping, and the shorts ones remain in the area next to the utensils.  For the most part there is only one layer of knives, which means I can see what I have! We are currently discussing a knife block, which could also solve this problem (but takes up precious counter space).  Since it's probably a decision that will take time and research, this is a solution I am happy to live with even if we decide against the knife block.

old knife storage - next to utensils, piled on top of each other

new knife storage location 1 - next to utensils

new knife storage location 2- kitchen island

 Ok, onto storing things in open faced & top jars.  First, using clear jars or partially clear jars is a great to be able to see what you have.  Second, using the same size jar makes it easy to organize.  The bottom left hand is filled with the jars I have re-purposed.  These jars do not have clear tops, so I've laid them on their side.  I use them for lentils, grains (such as quinoa, orzo, cous-cous, etc), dried chillies, and large spices (such as cardamom), but I'm sure you could find other uses.  As you can see I had extra space for other things that can fit for now.  I intend to put more clear jars there as soon as they are available.  I eat rice to often to use these, rice is in the larger jars and sit with the jars where the pasta and oats are stored.  These are placed on our window sill for now...

Re-purposed clear face jars for lentils, quinoa, cous-cous, etc.

Long Jars on window in kitchen

For jars that are not clear (so for example, canned beans, corn, other vegetables, tomato paste, etc).  Again, the key here is to be able to see what you have.  I have turned them on their side and placed them in the drawer with the label face side up (and you can see the extra things that made it in because there was room!).  I loose a layer of storage doing it this way, unless I place the same items on top.  However, with the sliding top drawer that I use for the knives, it's not possible to have another layer, so one layer it is!  What it means is that I can't really buy extra beyond what you see.  In some ways this is good for us, I only purchase what we need.  In other ways it can be frustrating.... what if there's a sale, then where do I store my extras?  TBD on that!

canned bean storage

canned bean storage, canned veggie storage, etc.

The other drawers aren't organized well enough yet. I plan to post on these later.

Other storage - in the original kitchen.  Well, I've tried this shelf system I purchased at IKEA to make extra space and to provide better visibility of what's there.  Here's what I've done for the dishes so far.  By placing the plates on top of each other using the metal shelf, I opened up room for the bowls. I've done something similar for the top shelf items (this is a narrow metal shelf).  By placing the sugar and milk holders on the bottom, I've been able to place the soy sauce, little bowls, and egg holders in a visible and reachable spot.  Behind the grey-ish bowls are extra egg holders that I should only need when more people are eating with us so I'm comfortable with them being unapproachable for the time being.

Since purchasing these I've decided to implement them in the right side pantry of the original kitchen, look for a post on that soon.

unorganized pantry away a metal shelf or two!

Clearly there are areas that still need work (we've only been in the apartment a month!) and there are still boxes on the ground that need to be dealt with.  For now, the island has dramatically helped us feel more comfortable with this kitchen space and has allowed us to find ways to organize our kitchen items.  I think I'll plan for more kitchen posts as we finish the rest of our unpacking, live with our organization choices, and most importantly use our kitchen items to cook (and possibly make fabulous meals)!