Organizing the Kitchen

When I was at Meg's, in the beginning at least, it fell to me to do the cooking.  I tried to make sure that the family had a minimum of one home-cooked meal per day.  (During the days-long moving process, fast food gets old real fast.)  On the day of the actual move, and for several days before and after, we were in the "camping out" stage.  Kitchen supplies were mostly still in boxes and on tops of counters until I asked Meg to take time out to put sticky notes on cabinets to help direct me as to where she wanted things to go.  Pans here, dishes there, canned goods over there, boxed goods in another spot...and so it went.  That helped.  What she wasn't able to do at that time, however, was tell me where all of the utensils should go, and it was time for me to put it all together so I could cook.  Meg was so busy doing other things that I just took it upon myself to do that by myself.

One afternoon, we went to Target in search of things.  I found some OXO drawer organizers--somehwat expensive--and decided we needed three of them.  Meg, not in touch with the kitchen project, was dragging her feet.  I was moving too fast for her (for obvious reasons), and she announced to me that I could do all of that, but I should NOT get my feelings hurt the next time I visited if I discovered that everything had been changed.  I told her that I was trying to make it so it wouldn't need to be changed, but I think she was doubtful.  I don't blame her.  I would be, too.  The kitchen is a housewife's personal territory.  It needs to be arranged conveniently--especially the utensils and measuring things.  I did my best.

With the extra counter space and cabinets (and drawers) that the new kitchen provides, we had to think about "zones".  Denis makes frappe's (that apostrophe is meant to be an accent over the "e") every morning.  Those supplies all needed to be kept together.  The canisters and measuring utensils needed to be close to each other.  The spices needed to be close to the stove.  And so it went.  Meg was suggesting things I didn't think were going to work, so I just proceeded the best I knew how and hoped for the best.  At the end of the day, I revealed to her what I had done.  I was afraid Meg would still be cautious about what I had done, but what she said was, "Oh...that doesn't look as bad as I thought it would."  Ha!  In any case, when I left a few days ago, nothing had been rearranged.  That doesn't mean that it won't be, but it does indicate that the risks I took (particularly with the spice cabinet) were fairly sound.

The spice cabinet?  Meg has a LOT of spices.  In the old townhome, she had to buy a special spice rack to fit the tiny cabinet, and things were just not very convenient to find.  In the new kitchen, I think Meg was convinced that we could cram all of her spices in a small cabinet to the right of the stove--but if we did that, they would still be as hard to find as before.  I used her old spice rack and bought a turntable for the rest and put them all on one shelf of a larger cabinet to the left of the stove.  I did it because I figured it was easier to get forgiveness than permission...and knew that she could change it all if she wanted to.  Again, it was so much more convenient the way I did it, I think it will stay the way I put it! (Hope so!)

The new kitchen has no room to be an "eat in" kitchen.  In anticipation of that, we both bemoaned the fact that, if we needed to sit down to do food prep, we would have to take stuff to the dining room table.  Ugh!  I got a good look at the kitchen and determined that there was, I thought, room for a small table to be used as an island.  Meg said no.  However, during the move, I took one of the IKEA work tables in there--about 2' X 3'--and it was perfect.  We used the daylights out of that table during the moving/unpacking process.  Meg was convinced.  She got online and bought a charming little counter-height table with two cute little stools to put in the kitchen.  Works like a charm!!

I know how very stupid this probably sounds, but the whole process of organizing the kitchen refreshed my confidence.  Like maybe Mom isn't as out-of-touch and old-fashioned as perceived?

Truly, I do understand Meg's reluctance at having someone else set up her kitchen.  If she hadn't been busy doing other things that were more important at the time, I'm sure she would have liked to do it herself, and I would have let her.  There are still adjustments to be made.  Fortunately, there are only so many drawers in which to put things, and in whatever locations.  I couldn't mess things up too badly!