At a friend's house for dinner the other night, the host (who lives in a charming but tiny apartment) reached into the pantry to retrieve his mandoline. Before any slicing or dicing of veggies could happen, some injury occurred, due in part to the storage challenges of living in a tiny home.
A safe, competent guy, the host who harmed his finger (don't worry, he'll be fine, just a small cut), isn't one to store things haphazardly at all; it just happened that because of his small space and love of kitchen gadgets the spot the mandoline had been living seemed the logical spot.
This incident made us think of our own brushes with harm due to small space storage situations. There was the time a seemed-sturdy-at-the-time media table toppled over when a heavy TV was placed on it (back when TV's were bigger than a thin flat-screen sliver). There was the near-miss with a bottle of cleaner falling to the face when we had (not smartly) stored our cleaning supplies on a top shelf in a closet once. And a few other times we've probably blocked from our memory.
Do you consider safety — or more specifically, how safe it'll be to remove — when storing potentially dangerous items? Have you ever been accidentally injured from a sharp or falling object because you lacked a ton of storage space in a small apartment or home? Ever been injured by something not dangerous at all?
More home safety ideas to consider:
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Healthy Homes Are Safe: An Emergency Preparedness Checklist
Do You Know What To Do in a Home Emergency?
Making Your Home Safe: Tempered Glass
Good Questions: Earthquake Proofing Shelves?
(Image: Product Review: Benriner Mandoline)
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I live in an UBER-tiny apartment with a fittingly small kitchen and my mandolin is stored in it's original box, tucked away... under my couch :s
Good thing it's just a few short steps from kitchen to couch.
The few extra seconds it takes to unpack and/or repack are worth it. Safety First!
I live in an UBER-tiny apartment too and my kitchen is kind of tucked away in the entrance hall. However since I got rid of my mandoline, safety isn't really an issue anymore. Why I got rid of it? The food holder couldn't hold any food, and as I once used it without food holder (because everything fell out of it) I scraped a bit of my finger away :-o. So it's back to good old knives for me, which hang on the wall on a magnetic bar. I also have cats and sometimes they manage to get inside my lower kitchen kabinets, so I sleep better knowing that nothing dangerous is inside there.
My mandoline is in a drawer with rotary graters, funnels and similar items. I've never had any actual storage related accidents but lots of frustrations with tiny storage spaces. Some stuff is tightly nested and you need to move several pieces to access it but usually the most used items are easily reached. It's worst when someone "helps" by putting dishes away and can't figure out how to get it all back in. They look perplexed as they survey the pile of leftover items. Might do one of those exploded diagrams some day to map it all out.
I struggled with where to keep/use a small microwave unit. With such limited counter space, many folks place it above the refrigerator. The risk is that the heated food will spill on you when removing it. In the end, my dad helped me run surface-mounted channel and electrical cord over to a safe cubby in the built-in pantry, where we could mount a raised electrical box. The microwave is now perfectly accessible and at a safe height.
For the record, I wouldn't use a mandolin; I've heard too many stories of people losing their finger tips. A nice, sharp kitchen knife is so much more satisfying.
In answer to your questions: Yes
When I was 25 my then-husband and I moved into an apartment with a postage sized kitchen. My then-inlaws had a larger kitchen in their moderately sized RV. There was one over the sink and 3-burner stove cabinet and the under the sink cabinet was a single door. The counter top space was given over to what was suppose to be a breakfast bar, so there was no storage nor was there any prep space. The refrigerator was not self-defrosting and, even worse, it was impossible to open the door more than 2/3 of the way but it had a small cabinet above it. I placed a small shelving unit on the breakfast bar for storage, thereby closing in the kitchen. I stored more seldom used pots in the cabinet above the refrigerator. Surely, this entire arrangement was an accident waiting to happen and it did. I was 26 and 6 months pregnant when I climbed onto a ladder to get a pot from over the frig. Predictably, I fell and in falling I tried to arrange myself so that the fall wouldn't injure the baby and in that I was successful. However my head hit the shelving unit causing it to tumble and I hit my elbow on the stove before landing on the floor with one foot wedged in the second rung of the ladder. My neighbor downstairs heard the commotion and came to my rescue. Ended up with an ambulance ride to the hospital and 3 day hospital stay. I had a concussion, broken elbow, dislocated shoulder, sprained ankle and a black eye with scattered bruises. Had there been anything cooking on the stove I would have been burned too. Lesson Learned: larger kitchen with adequent storage at my height or I do not cook, period.
We place our toaster oven on a high shelf to free up counter space. It is not used often. But when I do use it, I hv to take it down as it emits a lot of heat. A couple of times the plug has hit my head and the door can slide open, no thanks to gravity. So I hv to remind myself to always find the plug, and when bringing it down, tilt it slightly backward so the door won't open and hit my head.
I am blessed with cabinet space. Truly.
However, it was designed by a slug on LSD.
I prefer to have small appliances out of sight, and in this rental, that means the cabinet in the back corner, in the useless area between oven and fridge ( which are at a 90 degree angle...but a broom closet makes rearranging odd.)
I have the heaviest items, like an Omega juicer, which outweighs some lawnmovers, at a reasonable enough height, so the waffle iron and toaste live above my head. Now, they weigh nothing, and that is why I placed them there. The flour, beans, potatoes, etc are in the only other wide cabinet.
However, the toaster has no good way to restrain the cord. It gets tucked into a slot after cooling, but pops out.
I have been popped in the face a couple times.
I have friends who keep sharp stuff at that level! Ouch.
I've never been comfortable storing cleaners in the kitchen; if it's poisonous when ingested, I don't want it stored in the room with my food. Just in case, you know?
I keep my cleaners in the laundry room or bathroom, and mostly use vinegar and soap in the kitchen. If I needs something stronger, I can bring it in and take it out again, reducing the chance of a toxic spill.
The apartment my hubby and I live in is pretty small and so is the kitchen. We have an awkwardly placed gas fireplace that makes table placement a small challenge. The only spot that allows us to reasonably use 3 sides of the table is near an overhanging cupboard. We're both hitting our necks, shoulders, heads, jaws on the cupboard at least 2x a week because of that. We don't have much counter space but we do have a mini hotpress next to the sink, which had just enough room left above the boiler for us to squeeze the microwave in. Now we have a weensy bit more counter space. Sweet. Only thing is that the microwave door opens no more than 7 inches now.
Jaggae, I do the same thing with my toaster oven. I keep it in my pantry. Here is a tip. Once it's fully cooled and ready to store, I take the cord from the back, bring it front and wrap it around the door handle. this keeps the cord tidy and the toaster oven door shut. If the handle on yours permits this it, your problem is solved.