In the past year or so I've been on a quest to improve and simplify life.
One of the steps I took was to eliminate duplicate items from my kitchen. Things like multiples of the same sized pots and pans, dishes I never used, extra ladles, etc . . . One thing I got rid of was two extra sets of measuring cups. When I got married I received four sets. One basic white set, one rubber handled black set, one nice stainless steel set. (Which I actually re-gifted. Before using them of course.) and a lovely red set. When paring down I decided to keep the red ones because my kitchen theme is red and citrus fruits.
When I moved here for years ago I was pleased to find the kitchen was all white with some black trim. Which works well with my brightly colored fruit themed dishes and towels, but since I haven't had a chance to paint in there, it really does seem a bit starved for color.
Of course, there really isn't a lot of wall in my kitchen to paint. One whole wall (and some of each adjoining wall) is covered in a back splash of white tiles.
For years I've searched to try and find cute fruit themed wall stickers to dress the tiles up a bit and add some more color, but to no avail. The only ones I can find are not to my taste, being either
too detailed, too
dumbed down, and/or too
dully colored. I'm kind of going for modern-Asian-graphic or something.
(Hee hee, I just did a search and found
these. They are
almost what I want. Maybe I'll get them. I actually haven't looked for a while until now. :} )
Ooo, just a random tangent! I just recently (after getting paid to do a
Coat of Arms for someone,) found and bought these sweet things with my 'pin' money!
Aren't they adorable?
Anyway, enough blah-blah . . .
My point is, I had been wishing there was a way to hang pots, utensils, or really anything under my cupboards in order to better utilize the space. I had been looking at under-cupboard racks but I was feeling a bit leery of drilling holes into my cupboards.
While looking I did find these two cute items at Smiths Marketplace.
I think this suction-cup basket was $5 and the over drawer towel rack was $7 or something.
I like being able to clear a bit of space near my sink by putting the hand soap and dish sponge up on the wall. I'll also position my soap dish underneath the basket to catch any drips from the sponge. It works great, even with the dish soap perched in it.
Still, I hadn't found a way to
really utilize any of the space under my cabinets. Finally it came to me!
I realized, while it wouldn't be enough for pans, I could hang my red measuring cups under my cupboards using a small tension rod. No drilling required! This not only frees up a bit more room in my kitchen drawers, and makes the cups very easy to use and put away, but also adds a nice splash of color. Yay!
All we had to do was measure the area where the rod would go, buy a thin tension rod to fit and some S hooks. My hubby was a darling and pinched one side of each hook together so that once on the rod they wouldn't easily fall off.
Granted, the hooks would be much prettier if they were the fancy black hooks of a prefabricated kitchen rack, but considering the ease and function of this solution I'm not about to complain!
Hopefully this will inspire you to think outside the box for your own storage/decor solutions!
