lil’ kitchen storage upgrade

The new food processor I got for my birthday started a chain reaction amongst my kitchen appliances. Because we’ve got a tiny kitchen/dining area with little counter space, I keep my appliances and kitchen stuff to a minimum as much as possible. I debated getting a food processor solely based on the amount of real estate it would take up. So the behemoth slicer/dicer caused quite the conundrum. It’s too heavy to sock away into a low cabinet only for me to wrangle it out each time I want to use it. The higher cabinets are full of frequently-used dishes and are quite organized {read: I didn’t want to mess with the order of things}. The shelves were much to shallow anyway. But what gets booted off the counter to make room?

Husband’s solution {as it is to every teeny tiny space-complaint}: “let’s move!”

I came up with a different solution: moving a too-small-for-it’s-space-anyway bookshelf from our living room into the dining nook. It’s a small area, and our table fills it pretty well as it is, so it hadn’t occured to me to buy a piece of storage furniture for the area. But since I already had it {and therefore it would cost me zero dollars and zero cents}, it only took some clever rug placement underneath to drag and wiggle it over myself and check it out for myself whether the tiny area could handle some stuff.

Here’s the area before:

And here’s the after:

The little shelf gave me some much needed storage. Off the counter came a basket of dishtowels and place mats. Now I just keep a few in a drawer for easy access and the overflow in the brown basket on the shelf. I brought all the cloth napkins, tablecloths and table runners from my linen closet and put them on the shelf, too {in the white basket and in stacks on the shelves}. Now all the kitchen linens are one place. Even cookbooks had been banished to our bookshelves in our upstairs office. Now they are easy to reach, where I actually need them. {And now that I have room, I can totally feel free to buy more!}

Here’s a view from the other side:

I tacked a few tiny nails in the side {I am not too concerned over ruining the structural integrity of a $99 bookcase from Target} to hang my aprons. They generally got buried under piles of dishtowels after the laundry was folded. Now they are super handy {and super cute}.

I’m pretty stoked for the much-needed color and function my little one-hour upgrade added to the kitchen. I also like that it can be switched around super easily as needed.

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