Kitchen Cupboard Makeovers!
Since we last met here, I planned a wedding and got married. That’s a long time in terms of regular blogging, and a very short time in terms of wedding planning. More on that in another post.
Right now I’m looking to get into your kitchen and make your domestic dream come true. Well, one of them. We can create a sustainable system to:
- optimize your kitchen for healthy cooking at home
- set you and your household up for using and appreciating what you have
- responsibly dispose of what you don’t need anymore
Book a 1-day kitchen cupboard makeover with me for July via email right here, right now.
Why this? Why me? Why now?
I suppose it’s not surprising that a newly married unemployed person, pre-honeymoon, would/could be prone to some serious nesting. What’s unusual about me (or so I thought) was that I’d been simultaneously daydreaming about and neglecting the urge to perform a cabinet makeover in our apartment- for YEARS. I blamed my roommate lifestyle for why I didn’t do it, then I blamed work, then I blamed a high-commitment leadership program. At the end of all this I see that I just wouldn’t let myself do what I wanted to do. I didn’t deserve to take the time, owed other people promises first, I was scared it wouldn’t meet my standards, or it was just too domestic an endeavor for someone with an MBA. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it, it was that I wouldn’t let myself do it. $#%* that. Call me Monica from friends from the nineties, whatever. Let’s nest. Here’s how it went down at my place:
Notice that I stubbornly covered up loud labels. Who wants to see “Maxi Hair” in the kitchen cupboard? No, not even Artesana’s pretty teal label would survive the great logo silencing. I’ve been haunted by the short film Logorama first seen when I worked at a packaging design firm years ago. Now, any label that speaks louder than the item it tries to sell makes me twitch. This new system lets my favorite ingredients remind me of their willingness to hop into a home-made meal.
As it turned out, I enjoyed the hell out of the process. There seems to be some sort of genetic or personality-driven tendency toward OCD home organization. Two of my aunts have it, and my favorite neighbor has it. Many of us admire it and some dive into it in times of need. I wonder how many more of us are our there? How many long for this and don’t know that they can hire someone to get it? How many of us want to do this sort of thing in homes beyond our own? When I showed my cabinets to a friend, she asked me to do hers, for me it was like hearing, “Would you please eat my Tartine Bakery coconut passionfruit cake, as a job?”
Creating systems for an easier, more beautiful home life is my new M.O.
I get to help people streamline and optimize their everyday existence. I get to help them plan for eating healthfully and economically by shopping sustainably with local bulk foods and produce. And I get to recycle and compost what’s in the way. Basically, this is my triple bottom line for #NSH’s first service offering.
This makeover took various forms of pre-meditation, and also a little meditation in general. First, the big withdrawal after 7 years of random deposits. Next, the clean up. Then the boxing of the goods, conveniently contained in CSA boxes. Then the Marie Kondo trick of floor splay and category sort. It was amazing to see how much great stuff we had and to see that there were things I just don’t eat anymore. They needn’t take up prime cupboard space, rather they could be relegated to donation or hosting, stored separately. New healthy favorites could stand front and center. For newly labeled mystery spices, I plan to try my friend Marie’s daughter’s smelling test — now that my base ingredients are so handy, there’s room for creativity. I planned the layout by category using my favorite mind map, then adjusted, grouping what I use together most often.
Home cupboard systems are rarely single-celled organisms. My kitchen has multiple doors and drawers, nooks and crannies, for worse or for better:
The steel storage rack is a stand-in for a kitchen closet. It holds the extra stuff and the stuff we don’t often use. The under-cabinet bulk refill station makes it easier to refill grains that we use often without moving around much. When the big one is at empty from replenishing the main cupboard stash, refill the super jar and you’ll never be without.
My former roommate, Jon brought home these perfect little 1.75x.5" labels for spice jars one day, setting a precedent for informed cooking decisions, and hand-written identifiers.
What does it require?
- mason jars and other glass jars — your own or ordered through me
- your choice of label systems: white or craft brown, strips, circles, or squares
- interest in stocking your kitchen with bulk foods
What about entropy?
It’s true. Clutter happens. There will be backsliding. But there’s an opportunity to be curious. What didn’t stick? What habits or lack of structure lean toward this result? What new habits and/or structures could shift behavior and sustain your desired state outcome? I will offer seasonal tune-ups and optimizations as you develop your own presently perfect kitchen system.
And there’s always room to evolve. Stay tuned for guest contributions — there’s a lot for us all to learn from aunts, neighbors, elders and newcomers.
If you’re in San Francisco, I’d love to help you achieve kitchen cupboard bliss. And you can take advantage of first-client pricing. Now booking July 18–21, 2016. Email me to save your spot.
