Kitchen cubbies…

Obviously when you buy a house that isn’t new construction there are going to be some things you don’t like. For me the relatively short list does include one thing that has baffled me, what to do with the kitchen cubbies.

Obviously by the stuff I put in them you can tell I had no idea of what their possible use could be. I think they are probably a result of two things:

1. I think the cabinets were clearly installed wrong. I don’t know if that was by the previous owner’s choice or by accident. My reasoning for this is the cubbies face windows on both sides. I think they should actually be seen when you walk into the room. This would make them useful for housing photos or cook books. But as they are they seem pretty useless in my opinion.

2. If they were installed that way on purpose I think it was because an error was made when the kitchen was configured. I think maybe when the cabinets were ordered the previous owner was going to put the fridge where the stove was and vice versa. Instead it ended up being flipped, though I’m not sure it would have mattered the other way, and as a result the cabinet cubbies again are facing windows making them useless.

Or so I thought. It just so happens one of my fellow bloggers who I love moved into a new rental and low and behold her cabinets have the same cubbies. When I saw the picture of her new kitchen I could have kissed her because she had found not only a great solution for how to use her cubbies but she also stored dry goods in a manner similar to mine, which would also free up some inner cabinet space.

So fast forward to this weekend and I determine that using the cubbies to house my dry goods would also allow me to add about a dozen new mason jars, so we made that purchase from the Container Store and I was eagerly waiting for the appropriate time to tackle this project, which brings me to “A day in the life of” post number 1:

Let’s say you were to get an invitation to brunch at my house on a Sunday morning what would you expect me to be doing an hour before your arrival? Well if you guessed putting dry goods in mason jars to store in cabinet cubbies your guess would be spot on. An hour before Amy came to my house I set up my little station making sure to use a pan to catch the spillage so I wouldn’t be cleaning up the floor and table five minutes before she arrived.

I love this method of storing because it allows you to see what you have on hand.

I was a little baffled the first time I saw this wondering how Emily at the Daily Garnish knew when things expired, um is she a genius or what:

Clearly I am not because I have to steal all my home décor ideas from people I’ve never met on the Internet, but who cares. Oh no that’s not accurate I have actually met Julie so it makes knowing all about her new kitchen less strange. About five seconds before Amy walked through my front door I set up my cubbies and now they look like this:

Riveting, I know. What interesting things did you do this Labor Day weekend? Cool people set up cubbies, btw.