When I bought my little house 7 years ago it was just me and 2 felines. I wasn’t into culinary things and my cozy but slightly pitiful kitchen was workable for dinners that consisted of cereal, turkey sandwiches or cheese and crackers… My food budget then was also pennies but now I should probably buy stock in Food Lion because I’m in there so much…

…. the subject circa 2007…so much brown…

…twas the year 2008…still brown, but moving on up with new a floor and dishwasher (which is still a glorified drying rack after the incident here… unfortunately other things have taken priority..)

Fast forward a few years… I took Proverbs 31:14-15 maybe a little to serious (except no servant girls have materialized yet..) working my little kitchen out daily between dinners and baking things for hungry guys and though I’ve tried to spiff it up with my favorite all time color… I’ll let you guess what that might be… I’m hungry myself for something more. I alluded to painting the cabinets back here a few weeks ago, but baby steps y’all…

present day…22 minutes ago to be exact (and I did put away my clean dishes for you instead of leaving them on the counter. you’re very welcome…)

So since I’m all in the mood to nest, edit and update (my main goal with this little blog is to inspire, transfom and revive after all…) I trolled through my pinterest boards and found a couple of themes that kept calling out to me in the kitchens of:

This gal

This lady

and this chick

The ‘ol open shelving/baking center revolution…

And I’m thinking it would be a perfect solution for those 2 doors right above the drying rack dishwasher…

Currently a typical scene for any baking project around here tends to go like this:

Open cabinet doors, take out flour, swat door back out of the way while measuring and then replace flour. Grab sugar, measure and return to shelf, swat door away and open door on spice cabinet to grab oil- forgetting that I never closed the first door (only pushed it out of the way and then they bang together because nothing is square in this house and it’s slowly falling back open) and grab vanilla. Close spice cabinet door, re-open the first door, grab salt, swat door, repeat. You get the picture… the alternative to swatting is opening and closing the doors so many times you think the hinges will wear out and fall off…(don’t tempt it.. my only set of drawers in this kitchen and I have had more than one falling out regarding hardware failure.)

And you smarter folks may ask why not pull all the ingredients down on the counter but I’d counter with this: were all necessary canisters and items all assembled down below off their respective shelves , I’d sadly be relegated to the sink for work space and somehow I don’t think the mixer and water would play well together…

The other option is to move the coffee maker/toaster/mugs/knives and sugar dish out of the way when I’m baking or cooking but since I am lazy, this option is auotomatically negated…

So in my expert opinion the doors must go free… because if you love something let it go…

This free flow of door-less access to ingredients could lead to good things like me being more likely to bake chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies and such…

But the biggest accomplishment (other than giving me something pretty to look at while I cook) is that not opening and closing those 1/2″ thick doors a million times (for I am so easily deterred…!) will make me that much quicker in producing cakes and cookies… and who doesn’t like to save time! I will also be able to determine at a glance (before I start the ingredient rodeo) whether I have enough brown sugar to make a certain cookie verses having to drop back and punt with a similar recipe in mid mix… don’t ask…

It’s going to be monumental y’all…Stay tuned…!

Your plans for the weekend??

♥

P.S. I had been planning this kitchen post and project for a while and debated whether or not to go on with it today… I am truly thankful to have a kitchen at all- no matter what shape it’s in…. because sadly last night my sweet aunt in North Carolina lost her kitchen in a random fire. So in honor of her, would you say a prayer for them as they start sifting through the ashes? Thankfully no one was hurt (people or canine) but her prize kitchen aid mixer among other things (such as their stove which was relegated to the back yard by the Fire Dept…) didn’t fare as well. We treasure your thoughts and prayers and thank you!