Ode to my Pot Rack

This is my kitchen (and attached laundry room).  My incredibly neat and organized kitchen (I point this out to make sure you know that for me, my kitchen and laundry room don’t get cleaner or less cluttered than this).

Getting our kitchen/laundry room this clean was part of my birthday gift to Jason, whose only birthday request was for a clean (read uncluttered) house.  I took these pictures last Wednesday, and I’m happy to report that I’ve managed to keep (with Jason’s help) the kitchen looking this good since (although we did eat out several times over the weekend, so we’ll see how I do in the next few days).

The day before I took those pictures I took this one, which, sadly, reflects the more common state of my kitchen.

You can’t really tell from that photo (because the counter is far too cluttered) but I usually have quite a few things living on my counter.  Not living as in living-breathing-alive, fortunately, but just as in parked.   As in there is just no other place for them.  But with the big clean up I found it possible to make a bit more room in the cupboards for some of those things (like the half dozen cookbooks I keep in the kitchen).  And that was only made possible by the recent addition of a pot rack.

My parents gave me this pot rack for Christmas years ago (it’s older than Ezra!) and we never hung it up.  This is the only possible location for it, and both my dad and Jason thought it was a bad idea to hang it over the stove.  I tried several times to part with it, but just couldn’t manage to.  So, about a month ago, I finally climbed up on the stove with a cordless drill and hung the darn thing myself (the above picture was taken just a few hours later).

And, oh my, it is now one of my favorite things in my kitchen (its closest rival being my Danby portable dishwasher).  I was concerned that having a pot rack would just make the kitchen look cluttered regardless of how neat anything else was.  And to you, it may (what did you think when you first saw the pictures above?).  But after having it for about a week I actually started to like the way it looks.  And I love, love how much it has transformed my kitchen.

I now have a little spare room in my kitchen cupboards.  I can now find things quickly when I’m looking for them.  I can put things away without having to spend ten minutes jigsawing-piecing them together so they’ll fit in a given drawer or cupboard.  And when I’m cooking the things I need most frequently are right there, in plain sight and easy reach.  And since I make about five meals a day, finding a way to make the cooking and cleaning a little quicker and a little easier makes me a lot happier.