Time for another installment of “Pinspiration Monday” – This time we are talking about the kitchen counter and a couple of quick ways to dress up those every-day things that we need to have on hand that aren’t exactly the most stylish of kitchen accessories.
The first is a “pretty” way to corral the usual won’t-ft-in-the-cabinet-because-they’re-too-tall suspects – For us that includes a coffee French press, an assortment of bottled vinegar and oil, a jar of napkins and my owl measuring cups (although that last one isn’t an eye-sore at all – You know me and my hoot obsession…). To remedy the situation, I took a cue from this pin:
Source: Better Homes and Gardens
The idea is to put all of the random pieces inside a simple wicker basket. Having a special spot for these seemingly-unrelated pieces would allegedly bring a sense of order to the counter top. SPOILER ALERT: It worked.
Here’s a quick peek at those kitchen essentials in question (oh, and please ignore the open upper cabinet doors – I did some paint touchups and they were drying):
They aren’t the most unsightly pieces in the world (again, isn’t that little owl just adorable?? – Thanks to my bff, Beth, for that sweet addition to your kitchen!), but I’m the kind of homemaker that likes “a place for everything and everything in its place.” For whatever reason, putting it all inside a basket would alleviate my stress just a touch and that’s good enough reason for me. Anyone else out there just as crazy and agree??
First, I needed a basket.
When I went out-of-town two weekends ago to visit friends and my sister for my bachelorette party, I ended up getting my first chance to check out a Hobby Lobby. I had a blast curling around each and every aisle looking for fun things to decorate and/or organize the house. One thing I came home with was this pretty rectangular basket – At only $5.99, I couldn’t say “no.” I thought the angled weave was a tad unique and modern – At least as far as baskets go…
Taking yet another cue from my Pinterest image, I tucked a patterned linen napkin inside the basket, a gift from John’s mom at my bridal shower last month.
Here is the newly arranged basket, full of our favorite kitchen accessories! I really do feel like they look a bit better grouped together in an orderly way – I know…My OCD is clearly out of control in this moment…
The next Pinterest counter-related project I worked on was pretty easy and not mind-blowingly creative, but I love it nonetheless. I wanted to join the bandwagon of folks who keep their dry pasta in pretty glass jars on the counter. It looks good, keeps noodles fresh and empties out a little extra room in the pantry – All good enough reasons for me to give it a shot.
Source: beach bungalow 8
Source: Better Homes and Gardens
These three glass jars below, complete with brushed nickel metal screw tops, also came from my maiden adventure to Hobby Lobby. I walked out with one tall jar for only $4.99 and two medium, shorter jars for $4.79 apiece. Definitely didn’t break the bank on this project.
Here’s a quick look at our pantry, one I’m embarrassed to show you since it’s not very organized. Hopefully someday soon I can tackle it, armed with Tupperware and my label maker. But that’s another day…As you can see, we have a pretty good collection of pastas going (to the right of the photo).
Once I got all of it onto the counter, I was able to take stock – We’ve got an assortment of long pastas (is there a technical term for this?) such as spaghetti, fettuccine and angel hair, and then we’ve got the bite-size options like rotini and penne. We are trying to weed out our plain pastas to make way for whole wheat options (read up on our new dietary goals in this post from last week), and you’ll even see some gluten-free options from that phase of our eating habits.
The penne and rotini got their own jars (to be revealed in full in a moment), and the tall jar was saved for the long pastas. Now to decide who to put in there…So many varieties to choose from!
In the end, I decided to dump all of the boxes except for the gluten-free option into the jar. With the exception of the rice, gluten-free pasta, the rest were too similar to segregate. Our pasta dishes might look a little wonky until we run out of our multi-shaped supply, but I’m happy to get rid of all of those boxes. The jar had more than enough room to fit the four boxes-worth.
Here they are all filled up:
And they are now happily gracing the corner of our counter top. I love the balanced symmetry and there’s something really organic and natural about seeing plain dry pasta outside of those brightly colored and labeled boxes. I feel like Giada would approve.
All together now!!
All in a good day’s work…
What have you guys been organizing lately?
