Carefully Curated Clutter
Pretty successful Work Weekend here at the Landfill. Rooooomba is going over and over and over (and over and over and over) the Landfill Dungeon utility room floor. She isn’t getting into every single nook and cranny in that room (because KW hasn’t moved absolutely everything out of the way) but she is getting the bulk of it. She’s a persistent little beastie, one who managed to push a mouse trap over to the door and wedge it underneath. KW has gotten a good start on washing the windows — at least the interior ones — and the Venetian blinds in the Monster Bedroom and the Blue and Only Bathroom. It was a bright sunshiney day and the Landfill is looking (and smelling, if you like the smell of Windex, that is) pretty darn good if I do say so myself. At least parts of it are looking good. Let’s try to ignore those parts that are not.
I am s-l-o-w-l-y moving stuff back into the Landfill Chitchen now. As much as I loved the clean, spare look of the new cabinets, tile, and wood floor, I found myself (as I knew I would) wishing for a bit more color. And some clutter, believe it or not! My Ikea rails *finally* arrived and the GG put them up yesterday (thank you!) so now I have most of my pots and pans hanging above Gertrude…
…aaannndd, well, we’ll just call these Frequently Grabbed-for Tools. These are among the things that I box-dived for right off the bat!
I am still strategizing optimum usage of all the big drawers I have. I had mostly cabinets before but somewhere along the line kitchen design introduced the concept of big wide drawers. I love them. The ones I am using. But I am still trying to figure out what should go where. I’ll get there. One piece of clutter I would like to get rid of is my dish drainer but, as a hard-core hand dish-washer, old habits die hard. Not that I am not using my loverly new dishwasher, just that there always seems to be something to hand-wash and y’all may know that KW is up for that.
What did the GG do toady today (one of my frequent typos)? Well of course he lay around sipping Kaintucky Bourbon and watching sports on TV built a fence. With a gate. To keep the henries and all the other varmints out of Mouse’s Garden. I hear tell that deer have been more and more frequently spotted in adjacent neighborhoods and are apparently causing a significant number of car / deer crashes. Enough that The Planet Ann Arbor city council actually recently discussed in a meeting a possible plan to allow deer hunting in the city. Yes, you read that right. We’ll see how that goes over… Nevertheless, it’s only a matter of time that we’ll have deer in the back yard. Of course there is more to “deer hunting in the city” than what I just wrote but — WALLAH! VOILA! — here is the GG’s new fence / gate.
If you have renovated your kitchen or built a new house (kitchen) or moved or are just wishful thinking, what kitchen tools did you / would you box-dive for first?
Would love to know but only comment if you want to 🙂 I am shy about commenting on blahgs too. G’night, KW
May 18th, 2014 at 5:17 pm
Now there’s a question—which first. I gave superficial thought, and came up with items you’ve already put in good grabbing position—I can see them in the photos!
Kudos to GG for the fine fencing!
May 18th, 2014 at 6:38 pm
I’m very much liking the RED accent to your kitchen (as in your cool colander). Maybe quietly introduce that color here and there, maybe a red toaster? Hot pads? Just a leeetle bit?
Box-dive items: Seems like you have many or most of them handy. I have a lovely pottery thingy made by my favorite potter to hold my major utensils on the counter somewhat attractively that I constantly grab, like pasta tongs, a beloved “flat” whisk, ladle, wooden spoons, etc. I would (and will!) love large (deep) drawers for my stainless “mixing” bowls, although I use them for many more things than mixing; also bakeware, aka Corningware. Those drawers are also handy for Tupperware or its like. In our current house, John made me a pullout drawer that is so handy for my glass storageware that I absolutely love: http://amzn.to/1qNOSpY I also look forward to having a bunch of those drawers to keep thing OFF the counters, but still easily accessible!
May 18th, 2014 at 7:34 pm
When we actually moved back in, one of the things we needed right away was a candle and matches.
We never have power outages (except when a crow fries himself on the transformer), but we did.
And low and behold, were able to box dive in the dark for a Christmas candle and some camping matches.
May 18th, 2014 at 9:04 pm
Love what you’ve done so far. I definitely would need my coffee making stuff out and eating utensils. 🙂
May 23rd, 2014 at 6:15 pm
I’m for deer hunting in and around the city of Ann Arbor. They make themselves too much at home around us.
Yours, Gene