Alright so I've alluded to my "plan" for my kitchen a couple of times, but what is this magic plan?
It started from a piece of advice I heard on an episode of Struggle Care, the guest was Clutterbug who went through her archetypes and gave one piece of advice for each. In her archetypes, I'm a butterfly, very visual and struggling to put things in a home, "put away" needs to be as uncomplicated as possible.
The piece of advice given was ditch your dresser. Which I sat with for a few days before accepting. I've done so much over the last year or so to accept that the "normal" way of doing things doesn't work for me, so find alternatives. But this one never occurred to me. Ditch the dresser. It makes sense, opening the drawer is an extra step in the putting away, but I had some hang ups about it that I might get into another time. I finally accepted that if putting away the clothes is the problem then okay, use the shelves for clothes, and maybe use the dresser for something else? The hobbies where putting away the leftovers is part of deciding if I have the time or energy to do it, storing fabric or beads or things like that? I don't know yet, but I did move the clothes to a Kallax unit I already had. So far so good, but I also only just did laundry for the first time since that change yesterday.
This did get me thinking though, what else have I not yet accepted that there is a different way to do things?
I realized a couple weeks ago that the part of doing the dishes that's the struggle is putting the dishes away. Actually standing at the sink washing them is no problem, I almost enjoy it even. So how can I "ditch the dresser" with my dishes? By not putting them in the cupboard.
My kitchen is tiny though. My counters are taken over by my small appliances: the stand mixer, the toaster over, the ice machine. The instant pot lives on top of the fridge but takes forever to make it back after use, so that's on the counter too. Same with the popcorn popper. So we need to do something else with those then. Something that also doesn't require an extra step to put away.
Enter The Plan: im going to look for a hutch or a bakers rack or something similar that I can put in my kitchen instead of the table. I don't really eat at my table, it was a nice idea when I got it, but the reality is the table ends up being a dumping ground and I eat at my desk or on my couch.
The goal is to find something sturdy and heat-resistant enough that the small appliances can live on it (heat resistant for the toaster oven and instant pot.). Then I can move the dishes out of the cupboard and onto the counter. I have some wire racks currently in the cupboard to help add levels between the shelves, those will become the shelves. The cupboard then will be food storage, which I don't have much of now and honestly that's part of the problem too.
I am lucky in all this because I don't have to fully get rid of my table. My parents have offered to store it for me until I'm in a bigger place. Even without that though, I still believe this would be the right thing to try, I would just be a little sad to see the table go.