apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

love these!

never a convenient spot for the garbage can

I'm dealing with the garbage can thing at the moment. Right now it sits in my living room! Woe.

The lid holder is from IKEA! We have it and it's awesome.

I had a problem in my kitchen, I wanted to have my toaster oven & microwave on a shelf over my trash can, with enough room for the lid to go up. I ended up with a folding bookcase from target online with the bottom shelves always up to accommodate my trash can. It sqeezed into a small space between my fridge & wall. I was so happy with the freed up counter space.

My problem is lack of drawers. The two sets of drawers I have are of course in impractical locations. Any suggestions?

I'm lucky in that my rented apartment kitchen has both adequate storage up and down, adequate counter space, especially on both sides of the sink and a pantry and one blank wall so I was able to make good use of all of it.

It's not perfect in that the shallow drawers are on the narrow side but not bad and the base cabinets don't go down as low as normal cabinets (original circa 1960 cabinets) and the uppers need at least one more shelf for more efficient use of their potential so what I've done is used a wire coated display grid w/ hooks for pots and pans that can be hung on the blank wall, the Microwave sits in the pantry w/ a heavy duty extension cord eminating from behind the firdge, the toaster sits in the corner of the counter by the fridge and there is a spot for the coffee pot near the sink and I still have room to cook, stack the dirty dishes and leave clean ones drying in the dish rack and just behind me to the sink's right is the garbage can and the recycling is off to it's right so it's a matter of reaching behind me to my left as I cook to drop stuff into the garbage, the drawer under the stove is strictly for the pot lids, my spatter shield slides behind the back plate to the stove and rests on it's handle, easily accessed when needed.

but all of these ideas work great. If in a much older kitchen without overhead cabinets or exhaust hood above the stove, a simpe shelf to hold one's spices etc is a great idea as I've had to do that in the past and it works great and mount a surface mounted 2Ft florescent plug in light underneath to help you see when at the stove. In one kitchen, the grid was put up above the sink for that was also blank and all of my pots hung there.

I have very little wall space in my small kitchen--except for over the the stove. Do the shelves over stoves get too grimy from cooking splatter (see the last photo above)?

I cook a lot, so it is a heavy use stove top.

Thanks.

duzer, I have something similar in my kitchen and I use the articles on it so often that nothing really has time to get dirty. I've never noticed any splatters on it (could be the way I cook, and a mesh splatter guard over frying pans in use helps some.)

I also used to do the little cart with wheels in front of a door. It's really kind of a pain, but a good stopgap measure if you don't open that cabinet too often. I'm dubious about all the cute/fragile-looking bottles sitting so high on top of something you have to move any more than once a year.

I think the biggest problem with kitchens is that because of all the built-ins, they're impossible to rearrange. If the layout stinks, you're mostly stuck with it. I commandeered a utility closit for a washer/dryer into a pantry extention, and although it gives me a bit more space, it's not quite what I need. I'm thinking about putting up a pegboard, like Julia Child's, where I could hang up some pots.

I'm with duzer2537, I've been contemplating a pot rack over my stove for months but I don't have good air-circulation in my kitchen and I'm afraid of my clean pots becoming greasy in between using them.

Any advice?

I was struggling with the same decision but I went ahead and bought the grundtal shelves from Ikea for above my stove...I've heard the same thing that whytephoenix says...as long as you use the articles on the shelves regularly then they don't have time to get mucky...or if you're like me and more regularly bake than cook, you have even less to worry about.

My friend had a closet sized kitchen in her last apartment. She used IKEA's helmer drawers http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/40107872
it's thin and works well for silverware and things, and looked really cute in her place.

Our big problem was a weird layout in the kitchen. Between the laundry closet and utility closet was a small unused space - we eventually bought a small cabinet from Target to fill in. I love the extra space to display a few things and I never need to move it since it's not in the way. Since our table is in the kitchen, it sometimes is annoying when someone is sitting since they tend to block off the refrigerator or the back door...eh, things we have to deal with.

To whomever up above who whined while he had a pantry, shush - most of us don't.

My problem in my kitchen is two fold. 1) it's a 1950's kitchen with no storage for items like microwaves or breadmakers (both of which I use very frequently). and 2) it has very old rubber tiles on the floor which I cannot regardless of how many times I try to clean the floor, get it to a sparkling clean. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Does anyone know who makes that kitchen cart that is show between the stove and the counter top???? I have a similar gap in my kitchen, and I think that cart would fit perfectly!! Anyone?????

hey sophielynn: I have a very similar one that I got at target. it is 12" square and fits in the odd space between my stove and wall. It has 2 drawers and a shelf and is very very useful.

SophieLynn - Container Store has tons of carts. The one in the kitchen looks like MetroCommercial. You can order custom sizes from them. Also ContainerStore has tons of other carts at varying widths. (I love that store).