My New Kitchen
>> Tuesday, February 3, 2009
The grand tour of the new and improved Gratz Industries HQ begins today with . . . my fabulous new kitchen. This is my dream kitchen and it makes me absurdly happy to work in here. Even doing the dishes in here makes me happy!
I'm going to put a curtain under the sink side of this counter - but other than that everything will remain open. No doors anywhere! We're going to put an open shelf on each side of the window here too. We have the shelves (yay Ikea!) but haven't had a chance to hang them yet. The end of the faucet pulls out to be a sprayer. It's the little things like that that make me so happy.
Here's the "cabinet" on one side of the stove. We looked at TONS of kitchen cabinets and everything was either way too expensive, or just not what we wanted. When we found this heav-duty garage workbench I knew it was perfect - a stainless steel countertop, pegboard on the back, a nice wide shelf above the pegboard, good solid drawers with smooth slides, and more open shelves beneath. Perfect!
I love having all my stuff where I can get to it. I thought about going all Julia Child and drawing around each item on the pegboard so I would know exactly what goes where, but decided against it. :-)
The first workbench was my cooking station - this one is for baking. It's got all my mixing bowls and baking pans below. . .
. . . and all the really fun tools above - like my food processor with a permanent home right there on the counter where I can get to it. La la la la la - that's me singing with happiness while I work. I ran out of pegs so I don't have all my utensils up yet - but I got all my favorites - my beautiful purple colander and Jo's utensils with the funny butts.
And here's the island/pantry. It only looks like all we eat are M&Ms and chips - honest! We still need to order a counter top to go over these workbenches - it will be orange to match the one over by the window with the sink in it. And we still need to hang some art and make some finishing touches - but I wanted to show you some of the progress so far and this is the most finished room.
I was hoping for a snow day today so we could finish the dining room, but no such luck. Oh well. . .
Stay tuned for more house pics - and our 500th post coming up very soon. We're planning a great giveaway!
11 comments:
Absolutely love it. I love how you're leaving everything open and accessible.
What a fun fun kitchen! I can totally see why you love being in there.
And where did you find a purple colander?!? I love it!
Thanks! "Open and accessible" is a big thing for me - every professional kitchen has things on open shelves and every home kitchen tucks things into difficult-to-access cabinets. Why is that?
I got the purple colander at a fabulous shop on downtown Decatur, GA called Taste. They don't have a website but if you Google Taste Decatur Georgia you'll get the info about them. Not only is the color gorgeous, the "stand" at the bottom of the colander is extra-tall - so you can drain a huge pot of pasta without worrying that the draining water that tends to back up a bit in the probably-not-perfectly-clean sink will touch the bottom. Perfect!
What's up guys, I loved your kitchen. Found it by searching for "curtain under countertop". I loved it so decided to write about it on my blog. I sent over a link to you as well.
Well, I'll be! Didn't know about this blog.
What a fantastic kitchen!!!!!!
Wow. I've thought about using garage components for years in my kitchen, and was told it wouldn't work. Thanks for porving them all wrong! This looks like it will work perfectly!! Awesome job, it is beautiful!! My thing is, along with the stainless steel, I want butcher block for the remainder of my counters (I chop a LOT). With terra cotta tiles on the floor, yep, that picture is coming back into my head - thanks for the inspiration!
A kitchen with no doors? I think that is a very good idea! Making your kitchen like an open space sounds welcoming. People will feel that there is no barrier between them and the place. Also, your kitchen looks very modern and beautiful – in an industrial way. The combination of metals and other materials is quite interesting.
You kitchen reminds me of the cooking show “Iron Chef”. They used to have stainless steel kitchen counters and they usually used stainless pots and pans. So, how’s your kitchen area after three years? Have you made any renovations after that?
We've added more pegs for more items, but a few years on and it's doing great! We still haven't put a top on that island. My plan now is to build a wooden top with a slightly raised lip all around the edge, and to tile the inside of it. That's a down-the-road project though!
I like how you mixed and matched your kitchen items. Not only do you have stainless steel fixtures around the area, but you also have colorful and creative plastic kitchenware. It really looks nice! Good luck on your upcoming renovation plan, Alan!
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