Moving into a New Home? How to Set Up Your Kitchen

When I move into a new house, I always unpack the kitchen first.  My goal is to be able to have breakfast in my home the next morning.  I want to be able to use real dishes, silver ware and glasses by the second day in my home.  I may not do much cooking for a few days, but we can eat cereal and sandwiches and start feeling "settled" right away.

Having set up 16 kitchens myself (and helped friends rearrange their kitchens), I've got the kitchen set up strategy down.  It's much easier if I can see the space and the "stuff" you have, but there are general principles that apply to every kitchen set up. 
I tackle the set up in three phases.

First Phase:

1.  I  start by placing glasses in the cabinet nearest the refrigerator.   Since you will most often take a glass from the cabinet and the drink from the fridge, it makes sense to have the glasses located near the fridge.  If you have young children, consider putting their cups in a lower cabinet near the fridge so they can get their own cups.  The same strategy works for where to place coffee cups: place them near where you will locate your coffee pot, as well as the coffee, filters, creamer and sugar.

2.  Ideally,  I locate my plates and bowls in a cabinet between the dish washer/sink and the kitchen table.  If that's not possible, decide which cabinet better fits your dishes,  one near the dish washer or  one near the table.  Again, use the same strategy of using a lower cabinet for young children's plates and bowls.  This placement of dishes saves time for you either when you're getting the dishes out to eat because the cabinet is closer to the table or when you're putting them away because it's closer to the dish washer.  If I have a choice, I prefer having the dishes closer to the table so that when the children are helping me set the table for a meal, they are not in my way in the main part of the kitchen. 

3.  The next item to be placed is the silver ware.  There is usually one drawer large enough to hold the silverware tray.  If you're fortunate enough to have more than one large silverware-type drawer, pick the one nearest your dining table or your dishwasher/sink.  Again, I personally try to pick one nearest the table to minimize how much the kids are in my way as I prepare dinner and they set the table.
Those first 3 are the first tier "biggies".  By locating the cups, dishes and silverware first, I'm set up for my family to be able to eat in our new home.  If that's all I get done on the first move-in day, that's okay because we're functional for meals.  Getting these first 3 categories located in the kitchen helps me determine where the second tier of items will be located.

Second Phase:
4.  I locate pot holders, hot pads and trivets in a drawer near the stove.  The time I will need a hot pad is when I have a hot pot and that will be at the stove.  In my current house, we have a cook top and a separate wall oven.  They're located 8 feet apart.  I've chosen to put hot pads in 2 different drawers; one near the cook top and one near the oven.

5.  I put pots and pans in a cabinet near the stove.  There are usually 1 or 2 cabinets large enough to hold pots and pans near the stove.  Place the lids in the cabinet with the pots and pans. 

6.  There's usually one tall, thin cabinet near the stove where you can place cookie sheets, cooling racks and cutting boards.  If there isn't a cabinet designed for that purpose, you can often move the shelf up in a regular cabinet to accommodate the cookie sheets.  If possible, store the cookie sheets, cutting boards, etc. vertically because they take up less space and are easier to access by just sliding out the one you need.

7.  I prefer to store my spices on a 2-level lazy Susan in a cabinet near where I'll prepare meals.  This cabinet has been a corner cabinet on the wall with the stove in my past 3 houses.  The spices are conveniently located for food prep but are not too close to the stove (having the spices too close to the stove can effect the shelf life of the spice).



8.  I always locate the dish towels and dish cloths near the sink.  Often there are oddly small drawers or cabinets near the sink.  I put the towels and cloths there.  My goal is to be able to grab a towel when standing at the sink (usually with wet hands after I realize some one took the dish towel and didn't put a new one out.  argh!).  In one house with extremely limited cabinet space, I put the towels in a basket sitting on the counter near the sink. 

Third Phase:
Third phase items fill in around the first and second phase items.  You may not have room for all of your third tier items.  You'll have to assess the "stuff" you have and the space you have and then prioritize.  I've had to store appliances in other rooms in the house.  This isn't ideal, but in that situation it was the only solution.  (Plus, I really don't use the waffle iron or the blender all that often, or not as often as I do cups, dishes. and pots and pans.

                     9.  Although I've listed  pantry food items in the third phase, I consider where to store these items while locating tier 1 and 2 items.  If you have a pantry, yea!, this is a no-brainer. But if you don't have a pantry, look for a cabinet large enough to hold cans, jars and boxes. You'd like these items located between shoulder and knee level to make it easier to access.   I keep cookies and potato chips on the highest shelf (a deterrent that makes it harder to just grab them unthinkingly). 

10.  Put lighter weight items and seasonal items on the very top shelves and in that impossible cabinet over the refrigerator.  I put seasonal serving bowls and dishes over the refrigerator because once a year I can handle the hassle of accessing that silly cabinet.  I also put light weight plastic storage containers, plastic serving bowls and my plastic colander on a higher shelf.  If those fall down as I reach for them, it may hurt if it hits me, but it won't hurt if it hits me.

11.  I put heavy items on the very lowest shelves.  If these items fall, I want them closer to the ground to minimize damage.   I also place seldom used items on awkward bottom shelves.

12.  Ideally, you'd like to locate items into usable zones, e.g. the baking zone will contain bowls, mixer, flour, sugar, cookie cutter, and so on.  This has been possible for me in about 50% of my kitchens.  But it's still a goal when possible.  In my current kitchen I have a pull-out designated as the lunch box zone.  With 3 children and a hubby taking lunch each day, we have a whole lotta lunch box stuff.  With everything located in one spot, packing 20 lunch boxes a week is just a little bit easier for everyone.




13.  When my children were younger, it was important to have a craft area in the kitchen. They could color or glue while I was working in the kitchen.  I wanted them doing these messy activities at the kitchen table.  When I didn't have the luxury of a dedicated cabinet for crafts, I tucked a rolling drawer unit in a corner.  Once, in a teeny tiny kitchen, a plastic dish tub with coloring books and crayons was all I could fit.

Setting up your new kitchen is simple if you approach it methodically.  If you can do a puzzle (and I really don't like puzzles much), then you'll have no problem unpacking and setting up your kitchen. 

An Easy Way to Manage Your Keys

I have always liked having all my keys on one keyring.   With just one key ring, it's hard to forget a key or grab the wrong set of keys.  But there are times when I need to take just a car and house key with me in my pocket or evening bag or when I'm going out walking, I just need the house key not the entire bulky key ring.  A while ago, I got tired of fussing with the big, bulky, tangled key chain and fighting with it when I needed to get a key off of it. 

That frustration is long gone since I figured out a quick and easy way to set up my key ring.

Each car key and fob is attached to its own ring and the house key is attached to its own ring.  Then each of these 3 rings are attached to a central ring.  This way the keys don't get tangled with each other and it's easy to locate which key you want. 

With each set of car keys coming off the central ring, it's easy to detach different combinations of keys; just one set of car keys, just the other set of car keys, just the house key, or a set of car keys and the house key.

This same configuration worked great when I had office keys on my key ring.   The office keys were on their own ring attached to the central ring.  That way it was easy to remove the office keys when I didn't need them on the weekend or on vacation.  It was just as easy to carry just the office keys in my pocket at work and leave my personal keys with my purse.

Until just a couple of months ago, I used to have a plastic lacing thread braided "handle" that my daughter made me attached to center ring.  I miss that "handle" and am hoping to get another for my birthday from one of my crafty children. (hint, hint)

This configuration is so easy and works great no matter how many keys you have.  Give it a try and see what you think.

Grab n' Go Outdoor Kit

Last weekend my son had a soccer tournament.  That meant many hours outside in the great outdoors in June. 

I had grabbed the sunscreen from the bucket I have by our back door and thought I was prepared.












But withing 10 minutes of setting up our homestead  of chairs, cooler bag, canvas bag of snacks and the kitchen sink (or at least it felt like we'd brought the kitchen sink with us) I realized that I hadn't thought to bring bug spray.  The entire time we were swatting at gnats and other flying bugs.


I realized then that I needed one grab & go box or bag for when our family goes to outdoors events.  The Grab n' Go Outdoor kit should have everything I might need in one spot, so I don't to think of what item I might need in the harried rush out the door.

I found this puzzle tin that was the perfect size and I like the summer fun picture.

I filled it with sunscreen, bug off wipes, wet ones wipes and hand sanitizer spray. 








Now I just have to grab this one box and I've got everything we need the next time we're running out the door to an outdoor activity.  Easy and cute and practical!

You're Moving Across the Country (or World)...How Do You Find Your New Home? Part Three

Now that you've done all the research and background work, it's almost time to look at actual houses (or apartments) and find your new home. 

First, determine what is important for your family.  Now is the time you establish the wish list of characteristics you desire.   Using the House Comparison Worksheet, fill in your goal for each of the wish list items.  For example, how many bedrooms and bathrooms do you require?  For us, with 3 children, it's important (when possible) to have a second bathroom with 2 sinks, so I'll list that on my worksheet.  Another thing we look for is an area where our dog crate will fit.  We prefer to have the dog crate in the laundry room.  When that isn't possible, we look for another area that will hold it.   Fill in your desired commute time for yourself and your spouse. Fill in any other criteria that are important for your family to consider.  For example, we always consider the distance to the nearest airport and interstate because we enjoy visiting our families and having them visit us.  Other criteria your family may wish to consider are:  proximity to medical care; availability of sports or activities that your family enjoys; parks, pools, tennis courts; urban vs. suburban vs. rural; area to park boats or trailers; possibility to add a satellite dish, possibility to paint and personalize the space.

Now you're ready to look at individual houses.  I start with on-line research.  If you're able to, you'll want to tour the houses you're interested in.  By doing internet searches, you'll be able to narrow the entire town down to a manageable number of houses to consider.  In some cases, you may find you rent a house sight unseen. That is what happened with the house we're currently in.  It wasn't possible for us to visit the area before moving here, but because I'd done hours and hours of research, it worked out very well for us.  (And let me tell you, we were stressing out!)

If you're considering living on-base, you should study the different floor plans and options for on-base housing.  When I'm considering living off-base,  I go to MilitaryByOwner.com to look at houses first.  You should also search for real-estate companies in the town you're focused on and look at their websites.  Consider looking at homes listed on Craigslist. In some parts of the country, like the Metro DC area,  Craigslist is commonly used for listing houses for rent or sale.

As I look at individual houses, I fill out my House ComparisonWorksheet with the appropriate information for each house.  It's a great help to be able to compare houses in an objective manner.  Chances are that no one house is going to contain all the items on your wish list.  Filling out the House Comparison Sheet helps you compare different houses to find the best one for you and your family.

When you find a house that looks promising, fill in each column on your House Comparison Worksheet.  You'll have several windows open on your computer desktop as you search different websites for the information you need.  Fill in the name of the school that house is zoned for and the GreatSchools.net ranking (we'll look at the schools in more detail later).   To determine which school that particular house's residents attend, you often have to go to the district website where you fill in the street address and it will tell you the correct schools.  In some area, you call the school , give them the street address and they'll tell you if your children would attend that school.   Don't take the homeowner's or real-estate agent's word on which schools your children will attend.  Often the home owner or real-estate agent is not aware of the most recent rezoning changes.  You'd hate to go through all this work and then find out that you're not in the school you thought.

If the GreatSchools.net ranking is acceptable, then go to Google Maps and Google Earth.  You'll  calculate commute distances on Google Maps to work, activities and attractions.  On Google Earth, look for features that may be desirable or undesirable to you.   Two moves ago, I thought I'd found the perfect house for us.  It met all our criteria and fit comfortably in our price range.  When I looked on Google Earth, I discovered that the house backed up to a large apartment complex.  We ruled that house out because of that.  Once we lived in the town and learned more about that apartment complex, we found we'd made the correct decision.

If the house is still in the running, it's time to look at FamilyWatchDog.us.  You want to know if there are problems in the area that you should know about.  I realize that this only provides limited information, but since I don't live in that town and don't know the "good" and "bad" area, I rely on information from Family Watch Dog to help me choose my home.  Three moves ago, we were considering a house that I figured out was near a motel where several registered offenders lived.  I would not have known this before we bought the house, if I hadn't checked on Family Watch Dog.  Be sure to look at registered offenders near the house you're considering and the schools your children will be attending. 

If you're still interested in the house,  go to the department of education's website for that school district and start looking at more detailed test score information.  Again, I recognize that test scores can only tell you one small piece of the puzzle, but that's really all I have access to when I'm moving across country.  In a perfect world, I could visit the school, talk with the principal, sit in on classes, and attend a PTA meeting.  But since that has never been possible for me in my 20+ moves, I'll utilize the information I can learn from the school's published test scores and reviews on GreatSchools.net.

If the house has passed all these hurdles, I put it on my possibilities list.  Checking the first several houses will take time, but after just a short while,  you will get to know the areas much better.  Eventually, you'll almost be able to look at an address and know  where the house falls on your wish list items on your House Comparison Worksheet and know whether you want to consider that house or not.  

Working through all these steps will help you make the right decision for you and your family in finding your new home.  But know that even when you do all that work, there are so many things you can't know until you live in a house.  Surprise: the neighbor now has a school bus yellow beat up old truck that's up on blocks in his yard when you move in.  Surprise: none of the street lights work and it takes almost a year to work through the city council to fix them.   Surprise: very nice neighborhood, but not very friendly neighbors.  These surprises have all happened to us. It just makes me wonder what would have happened if I hadn't done all that work before we moved?

Doing all the research makes it easier for you to find the best home for your family's needs, but always remember that there is not just one perfect house for you to find.  There is no perfect house.  There are a couple of better choices for you, and those are the ones you're working to find.   Good luck with your search.  Happy house hunting.

Other Posts in this series include: You're Moving Across the Country (or World)...How Do You Find Your New Home? Part One   and   You're Moving Across the Country (or World)...How Do You Find Your New Home? Part Two

Easy Shoe Storage with a Repurposed Wine Rack

Before

 Shoe storage is always an issue for our family where ever we move.  We take our shoes off before we enter the house and so with 5 of us, it's critical to have an area to store a lot of shoes.   The 5 of us have close to 50 pairs of shoes PLUS athletic shoes and skates to store each season.  Conservatively, that's over 100 individual shoes to house on shoe racks.  YIKES!

In a perfect world, or at least a world where we don't move every 1 to 3 years, I'd invest in the ideal built-in storage system.  A system that would fit perfectly for this exact space and would maximize every inch of space.  But since we will probably be moving again within the year, I haven't wanted to invest much money in the storage.  I want functional, but cheap shoe storage.

Nordic Ware, My Favorite Bakeware

 

I enjoy baking.  I'm not at the pastry chef level, but I do bake quite a lot.  For almost 20 years I was frustrated with the loaf pans, muffin pans and cookie sheets that I purchased.  They'd work fine for 1 to 4 years and then start warping or rusting.  I didn't buy professional quality bakeware, but they also weren't the cheapest products out there.  I tried several different brands.  I didn't understand why my mom and mother-in-law still had the same bakeware they'd had for almost 50 years, but I kept having to replace mine. 

My biggest frustration was with the muffin pans I'd purchased.  The pans were designed so that the muffin cup was a separate piece from the flat top of the pan.  I carefully hand washed and dried the pans, but every one would rust at the seam where the cup connected to the top of the pan. 

  

Then, by luck, I found Nordic Ware. The muffin pan is pressed out of one continuous piece of aluminum. I've had this pan for over 4 years and it still looks beautiful and works perfectly.  And I was thrilled that it was Made in the USA.

   

I was so happy with the muffin pan that I've gone on to purchase a loaf pan, cookie sheets, a cake pan and several other items.  (Listing those items made me curious so I just got up and counted; I have 11 Nordic Ware bake items, all purchased in the past 3 1/2 years.)

All of the products I've purchased are  well made.  They have not discolored nor warped and look as good as when I bought them.  I only wish that I'd know to buy Nordic Ware 20 years ago when I first started my own home.  How much money and frustration I would have saved myself!

Even more than the quality of the products, I'm super impressed with their customer service.  I placed an order on-line and commented on the on-line form how I appreciate that the products are Made in the USA.  The following day I received a call from their customer service.  They wanted to let me know that one of the items I'd ordered was not made in the US.  We had a long discussion about why and the high standards the company requires of all the products, wherever they're produced.  The customer service rep took the extra time and effort to  make sure that I would be satisfied with my order.  Let me tell you, I'm still stunned by their honesty.  If a company is willing to take the time to make sure that I'm that satisfied with an order I already placed, I can only imagine how committed they are to the quality of their products. 

Buying from Nordic Ware is a triple win for me:   Made in the USA,  high quality products at reasonable prices AND a company obviously committed to customer satisfaction.  I can tell you that I am one satisfied customer.

(Absolutely no compensation for writing this post.  Nordic Ware has no idea who I am.)

Repurposed Doggie Breath Mint Tin Box

A couple of weeks ago my friend, Karen, gave me a box of doggie breath mints that she thought my dog might like.  Should I have been offended?   Nah, all I saw was a crafting opportunity. 

I grabbed the Mod Podge and decorative paper and quickly got to work.  After covering the top with the decorative paper, I thought it needed a little something more, so out came the Cricut.  I cut the pink "stuff" letters out of vinyl.   In the art of labeling, sometimes "stuff " just says it all.

I think it turned out adorable and could be used for holding all kinds of "stuff."



Can't wait to hear what Karen thinks when I surprise her with it. 


 I'm thinking maybe my dog needs more breath mints. 

You're Moving Across the Country (or World)...How Do You Find Your New Home? Part Two

At this point, I have narrowed my focus down to 1-2 towns.  My goal now is to find areas within those towns where we'd like to live.  I'm NOT trying to find THE house yet.  I'm continuing to narrow the entire world of possibilities down to a handful.

I start by looking at houses listed on MilitaryByOwner.com (if you're not military, follow the same steps using realtor websites for your area).  Reading over the lists of houses linked to the base we're being assigned to, I can start to see a pattern of areas where other military families are concentrated.   That's not a guarantee that we'll be happy in those areas, but it gives me a place to start looking.  I'll use Preparing for a Move Town Comparison - Step One worksheet {here} to evaluate each area according to characteristics that are important to us. 

Knowing When It's Time to Let Go of a Misbehavin' Storage Bowl

Knowing that you should purge an item when it's no longer useful and actually letting the item go are two different things.  When it comes to letting go, it's always the ridiculous things that are the hardest for me to part with.

I've had this set of storage bowls for several years.  These bowls were casino freebies given to me by my parents.  I should have absolutely no reason to hang on to them.  But.... I really like them. I like the way they look (I know it sounds silly) and they store nicely stacked inside each other (sounds rational). 

The bowls work perfectly... all but one of them.  The lid on that one doesn't fit right.  He's quite tricky about hiding his "lid fit" problem.  The lid fits perfectly well at room temp.  But the next day when I pick that little guy up out of the fridge, whoosh, the lid no longer fits and I end up with a mess. 

 It took me over a year to figure out what was going.  When I tested the lid after cleaning up the mess, the lid would fit just fine (dun dun dun dun) until the next time it went into the fridge.  The plastic lid on that one bowl contracts just enough in the cold refrigerator to pop off the edge of the bowl.

When I finally figured out what was going on last week,  I should have immediately thrown the lid away and either found another use for the bowl or donated it.  But no-o-ooo.  For some reason that trickster bowl continues to sit on my counter with its lid fitting perfectly (at room temp); silently pleading its case to stay because he promises to behave next time.  I just can't seem to bring myself to let the little guy go. 

I realize this is absolutely ridiculous.  Decluttering "rules" say to get rid of a thing when it doesn't work, you don't use it, you don't need it and you don't love it.  My little trickster bowl doesn't work, so I don't use it.  It doesn't work so I don't need it.  It doesn't work so I shouldn't love it.  I know that it's time to let that little rascal go, but it's still hard to say good-bye.  

Sigh.  Good-bye bowl that doesn't work and I don't need.  Off to the donate box you go, minus your troublemaker lid.    

(Luckily, I still have 3 others that are cute AND work perfectly.)