We are finally cleaning and organizing the kitchen, which also meant going back to buy the little things that we didn't earlier, including more shelves, hidden drawers and things like these nice-looking drawer dividers made out of bamboo.
Ikea.
I don't really like buying so much from Ikea, but they make it handy with sizing, since our cupboards are from there. Everything is designed to fit well and it tends to also be practical, so it is hard to resist. However, we didn't go all Ikea, as we bought other appliances and the composite stone worktop is from a local company. But at the end of the day I don't mind where things are from, as long as they work and so far, we have been happy with the result in both form and function, and the appliances are awesome.
While we are organizing though, I know that once we are finished, I am going to end up changing things again once I have had a chance to get used to the kitchen. Little things, like where the knives go, or whether the coffee will go on the shelf or into a drawer. I want the kitchen to be convenient and smooth to use, but at least in the early days of learning, it is a process of continual improvement until my muscle memory gets used to even the "non-optimized" parts, making it feel convenient.
A good test of whether a kitchen functions well is having friends over to use it, as they will look into drawers expecting to find things in a handy space, even though they might have their own kitchens set up slightly differently. It is when they have to ask for basics that indicates, yeah, it doesn't make sense. Though, we are the ones who will be using the kitchen 99% of the time, so as long as we survive.
The organization is the fun part for me though, and when I was a kid (perhaps like many kids) I would spend many hours at times rearranging my room to make it "work better", even though it was tiny and I didn't have that much stuff to actually rearrange. There was only two places where the bed could go, and moving it to the other meant moving the desk to where the bed was. It was like a twice-yearly cycle or something, just for the change.
Change is as good as a holiday.
Which is lucky, as there is always lots of change around which comes at a cost, so there isn't a lot left over for taking holidays - nor time for holidays for that matter. Though, who needs a holiday when there is so much change to fill the time with?
There is some sarcasm in there.
Though, I do think it is better to be busy doing something useful, than bored doing nothing much. We were just talking to Smallsteps about what she wants to be when she grows up and she said a teacher of some kind that teaches math. Not so long ago though, she wanted to be a ballerina and before that, a mouse. As I said to her, no matter what she chooses now, she has the ability to change it later if she wants to explore something else, but why not a ballet dancer?
"The moves they do are too hard."
Sure, but that comes with practice and if you do something that is too easy and doesn't challenge you, you will probably end up bored, not liking what you do, but perhaps stuck doing it.
"Why stuck?"
Not so easy to explain to a six year old and you can always choose differently, but as you get older, responsibilities mount up and obligations have to be met. It is difficult to change career path and "start over" if you have a house mortgage, dependent children and a lifestyle expectation. It isn't impossible, but it makes making the decision, much harder as in most cases, it means scaling back on a lot of accustomed practices.
A long time ago, I was going to go back to university and study something different to open up my career opportunities. I was under thirty at the time, but my girlfriend was also studying and I was largely supporting both of us. The deal was that after she finishes and gets a fulltime job, I will go parttime and study on the side. Six months after she had her fulltime job, we broke up and I ended up buying her out of the loan on the apartment we owned together, so my immediate obligations went up and a return to school was no longer possible.
Stuck.
Perhaps it was for the best, as I ended up starting my own business a couple years later, which I might not have done otherwise and that led onto having two jobs and no time for holidays. But, it has allowed us to buy an old house and start renovating it, so it has also worked out okay.
Unlike the cutlery drawer at the moment, life is far messier than perhaps we would often like, but that mess takes us down paths that we wouldn't otherwise have access to or choose, even if we did have the opportunity. The randomness of changing circumstances raises opportunities that can lead us to some of the most important parts of our life, like a new career path, or the chance meeting of a future partner.
We often try to limit the change in our lives and seek for stability, but perhaps it is this tension between it and the volatility that keeps us engaged with our world, interested in living this life. Sure, there is the potential for too much drama as some seem to chase, but in there somewhere, there is an equilibrium where we can be our most active, enough volatility to force movement, enough stability to give a solid base to spring from.
With the right personal tools at our disposal, disruption becomes challenge that we can face and overcome, which keeps us closer to the edge of experience, and rather than wishing for something to happen, we can feel that we are out there, making it happen. Even if it is just a better organized kitchen.
Keep the tools in the drawer sharp.
Open the drawer and use them often.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
My idea of an organized kitchen .... "Honey, do we have any peanut butter? Honey where is the wooden spatula?, Do we have any Pickles? Where should I put the knives?"
A simple organization plan.
:D :D
This is awesome!
A well organized kitchen is a must. I am not going to take an extra step or have to reach in the back of the cupboard for something that I use on the daily. That been said, I do need to re-organize some of the cupboards that hold baking stuff, it’s a mess in there.
I used to work in a professional kitchen where everything was always exactly in the same place so you could basically make the meal blind as your hand would be already reaching to the correct drawer before you can think about it. There is something quite satisfying about it.
Baking stuff? What is baking?? ;D
Yes. As silly as it sounds, I liked working at McDonald's because of the order it had - it was made to be as efficient and effective as possible, so that even 16 year old kids could use it well.
The other thing that I wish I had was... A hoseable floor :D
How's the house coming? Anything major at the moment?
They know how to max profit.
Oh I dream of tile floors in the kitchen, while the glasswear can be in danger, it’s a joy to clean. Did you do something to the kitchen floors when you renovated?
Nothing going on at the moment. Probably just gonna do more little projects over the winter and hopefully in the spring we can get the drainage done. That’s obviously something we just have to hire professionals for.
There was a laminate floor on top - it was disgusting. We took it up, expecting to have to replace the wood, but it was in great condition, so we painted (like the rest of the house) - we used Tikkurila Betolux. It has been really good so far, even after all of the workers traipsing over, as we did it before we did the kitchen.
It is possible to do it, but I am not sure how much saving there is, as it still takes renting equipment and a massive amount of effort. I have some friends that did the digging themselves by hand... they said "we should have paid" :D
Always a nice surprise to find good floors underneath. I hear Betolux is really popular because it’s so hard wearing.
Well, professionals are people too so yes it’s possible to DIY but it would be an insane task to dig to ~3metres all around the house ourselves. Not even entertaining the idea.
This should be the tagline for my workplace :OD
:D
A whole building full of tools.
A remarkably big one at that... building that is! :OD
Perhaps the size of the building is making up for the size of the tools.
It works have to get very big indeed, lol
That’s looks like mine… a long time ago. I accumulated more and more overtime and it no longer fit neatly like that.
Time to purge 🤔
The purge is good! We purged a lot when we moved a couple years ago, but I am hoping that now we have more storage space, we don't use it.
My eldest son in childhood said that he wanted to become an architect, and the youngest son at 5.5 years old firmly decided to become a billionaire)
Are they both on the chosen path? :D
Yes, one son draws well, and the second one I opened an account on Hive and he counts how every day he gets 3 coins)
That is awesome!
I remember making my friend's parents laugh because despite having never been to their house before I "magically" knew where to find everything XD (I just expected potato peeler to be in the first drawer and kitchen knives in second drawer as I couldn't see a knife block and there they were), some things just work enough to be commonplace XD
Least you two are about the same height right? J tends to design the kitchen around himself as he does most of the cooking and at our last house this meant the microwave ended up on top of the fridge which was fine for him and a minor safety hazard for sibling dearest and I XD
General volatility is why I don't make 5 year plans x_x
I think drawers are more or less the same at any home, thus one would find what they look for. However, shelves might be a mess because we put pots and pans inside :)
I have used some kitchens were nearly nothing was where I expected it to be - it was like an evil clown had organized it.
I salute you for having an organized kitchen I love what you're doing since I can relate especially fixing things at home much more in the kitchen which is supposdely the busiest and the cleanest part of our house.Hoing to have a drawer like that and all the kitchen tools I want will be in my kitchen soon.
A good kitchen is a well used kitchen! :D
This is a very beautiful and real thing. It is better to do the parts that make us feel comfortable than to get bored without doing much.
I heard a Swedish Youtuber once call Ikea, "Swedish church," or something to that effect. Is it really that much of a dominant force in the market, or more a stereotype?