Making our kitchen more useful

Over the years, I figured out that I need a lot of counter-mess space when I cook. And I like to have stuff close by. I hate rummaging through stacks of pots, pans, cooking sheets, whatever -- when I'm trying to cook. It can put me in a foul mood and makes cooking less fun.

But when we moved into our current house, I wasn't cooking much and didn't care a lot about the kitchen, other than to make sure it met some minimum counter space requirements and that it had a hood to vent smoke.

As for high-zoot kitchens, I don't really care about bling in the kitchen. But it would rule to have a bad ass BlueStar range and a more powerful hood that could actually suck up the smoke from a properly seared hunk of meat. We are definitely going to install a better hood, but I'm too cheap to spring for the high-zoot stove. For now.

Last weekend made a wonderful change to our little kitchen nook. Until recently, it was Maddie's desk and drawing area. Now it's a place for more counter space and a place to hang the pans that were stacked under cabinets and in our downstairs pantry.

My buddy, Glen, is a wizard with anything made of metal. He had this solid piece of steel rod in his shop. He welded a chunk of stainless chain to it, and voila! A bad-arse, no-nonsense pot rack. I dig it.

Under the table, there is space to store the big pots that were also previously downstairs.

Next, I'm going to angle for a little shelf space.

The new change is great. And super simple and cheap.

The desk/table thing we have is just the right size for a hunk of marble we had laying around and a big cutting board from my mom's stash. The marble is great for setting hot pans aside when we're in the thick of cooking. The cutting board is in a great spot: good light from the windows and out of the way of anyone else in the kitchen.