Friday, December 10, 2010

Pretty over the kitchen sink!

Auntie Leila is hosting a little kitchen party today. Want to participate? You can link up here.

A few days ago she asked us to take a few minutes and make our kitchen windowsill beautiful. I don't know about you, but it is really easy for me to let mine become a collector of "stuff". Soap and scrubbies that I'm not using, maybe a rag that I left up there...not appealing! And Leila is right - we spend so much time in our kitchen, we really ought to make an effort to keep it pretty. So, here's my newly beautiful windowsill:



Sorry about the lighting - I was having troubles with my camera. It may not look like much in the picture, but in real life it is a lovely vase of white roses, and a little pink tea candle beside it. Also, I finally have my white curtains back up, which makes a nice frame for the flowers.

Leila's second request was for a discussion about kitchen "flow". This is something I feel competent to discuss, having thought about it thoroughly and recently changed how I was doing things.

In my first three kitchens, my sink area movement went from left to right. Dirty dishes on the left, clean dishes on the right. This is how it was in the kitchen where I grew up and it was habit! But you know what? It didn't actually work very well in my current kitchen.

So when we remodeled, I switched things up. Now we move from right to left! :)

To the right of my sink, the two appliances that I use the most: bread machine and blender. Lots of food prep happens here, even though it is a smallish bit of counter. I like having the towel/dishrag rod right there to wipe my hands!



The sink itself: garbage disposal on the right, soapy water goes into the left. And isn't my little windowsill pretty?



Dish rack for drying clean dishes on the left. Directly above (and to the left) are cabinets where clean dishes are stored.



I like the change a lot. Dirty dishes can be placed in the right hand sink or directly into the dishwasher. Clean dishes move from the sink to the drying rack to the cabinet with nary one wasted step!

How about you? Have you put thought into your kitchen's flow? Do you take the time for the little touches that make it pretty?

7 comments:

i cant decide said...

Your kitchen looks nice.

Elisa said...

It's really pretty and sunny. Love it! And roses?? Gorgeous.

Bethany said...

Haha! I, too, read the post about kitchen flow and I reorganized my kitchen today. I do that every so often, though, so we'll see if my new system works. I'm deciding if I have enough energy to take a picture of the window over the sink . . . maybe. I like yours!

Amber said...

Your kitchen windowsill looks lovely! I do a decent job keeping mine nice looking without kitchen clutter, but my failing point is keeping it dusted! I have two teacups there that I love but they are such dust magnets.

And isn't it funny how we just keep that right to left or left to right flow no matter what? I remember having to switch in one kitchen (can't even remember which one now!) and while it was better for that kitchen, I was happy to switch back to dirty on the right and clean on the left once we moved on.

Leila said...

Hi Emily!
So nice to see your gorgeous roses on your spotless windowsill! Love all the white!

Thanks so much for contributing!

Anonymous said...

Love the white and bright!

Anonymous said...

Love the brightness! Beautiful.

Linking up from Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Have a lovely week, Tamara