kitchen

I read somewhere that you shouldn’t keep something on your counters in your kitchen unless you use it every single day.

I’m not sure that’s feasible for all of us, but, it did make me take note of what I was displaying in my kitchen. I started evaluating everything I had on my counters and wanting everything to earn its keep. And when it came to small appliances, I was ruthless.

For years my blender sat on display, even though I only used it a few times a month. So now I store it away to clear up some much appreciated counter top real estate. When I need it takes an extra 10 seconds for me to fetch it from the cupboard.

dining room

When it came time to think about where the microwave should go in our little renovated kitchen, I decided to tuck it away on a low shelf of a piece of furniture.

The kitchen is just to the right of this photo and the microwave is just out of the main thoroughfare, yet accessible enough to get to without taking up massive amounts of space. We don’t even use it every day so this works for us.

A few years ago, when the boys were younger, we used the microwave a lot more so this set up wouldn’t have worked as well for us.

microwave

When it comes to keeping a high functioning (and pretty) home, I’ve found one of the most important things I can do is to simply pay attention to how and if and how often we are using the things we have always had sitting out on out counters.

It’s that simple and that difficult!