Small But Mighty

My friend Jess says that everyone should marry a woodworker and here is the proof. Here are the before and after shots of our small but mighty kitchen. I am thrilled with how it turned out.
















Matt originally built the cabinets for our previous apartment in Bayonne, where we had them under a large butcher block kitchen island. The wood for the cabinets all came from plywood scraps from his shop at work. 

For this (much smaller) space he built a new counter top to go over the cabinets, fitting it to match the curve in the wall on the end closest to the window. We got the wood for the countertop for less than $20 through a great Craigslist find.

We focused on making the best use of our wall space in the kitchen. Matt built the narrow shelves on the walls to hold our jars of rices, nuts, seeds, etc., and the lid tree. The magnetic strips to hold measuring devices were an easy order from Amazon ($10 each) and the cast iron piece that the pots hang from is something Matt's parents had for almost 30 years before he started using it about 7 years ago. Matt made the knife block last Christmas out of scraps.

We extended the countertop past the cabinets to create more counter space. This also created space to store a small stool that is very nice to have when peeling lots of carrots or potatoes, or when we just want to hang out together while one of us is cooking. 

I love the spice rack Matt built out of scraps. We don't have any counter space next to the stove which means that when I set out ingredients for a dish, everything is out of arms-reach from the stove. The spice rack is easily accessed while cooking and allows me to keep my spices organized. We'd previously been storing our spices in a cabinet so moving the spices to the wall freed up cabinet space (hooray!). I also enjoy the pizza peel's cozy home out of the way behind the heat pipe.

We downsized considerably when we moved to Brooklyn from Bayonne and the kitchen was one area I was worried about. But now that it is complete, I am thrilled with how functional and efficient it is. Even the dishwasher, which is not very good, manages to be quite useful as a drying rack when hand-washing large loads of dishes. 

This is a kitchen that begs to be used and I am happy to be the one to use it!