Creating Work Zones In My Kitchen

I finally accomplished my goal of cleaning out the kitchen cupboards and changing the functionality of it. David and Caroline were a big help and we’re all pleased with the results.

Compared to most houses you see online today, we have a relatively small kitchen in a relatively small house. Every bit of cupboard space must be carefully used. There is one smallish pantry cupboard to my left as I’m taking this picture that I didn’t include in the pictures. It’s technically more in the dining room area. We use that for food. 

We cook two meals at almost every mealtime. David and Caroline eat what they eat and I eat what my EoE requires. Because of this, we use different ingredients, different tools, etc.

So one of the big changes was to assess which tools in the kitchen they use and make sure they are all in one area. All of the things I use are in another area. I know this seems rather obvious and it is. We simply hadn’t gotten around to doing this.

For example, I never use the cheese shredder because I cannot eat dairy. But the cheese shredder was stored in the left part of the kitchen where I do my meal prep which meant any time they needed it they had to come into where I was doing my food prep. The same thing with the liquid measuring cups. We have different cutting boards so I don’t get cross contamination from their foods, but their cutting boards were stored in the lower cupboard where I am usually standing. We have different pots and pans which were stored in two different areas and intermingled. We know which ones are mine and which ones are theirs, but we didn’t have them in separate zones which we do now.

So David and Caroline now have all of their regularly used meal prep items primarily in these cabinets in this corner. They work on the counters to the left and right of the sink. 

All of my things are in this corner.

There is still some overlap since they have many more tools than I do. For example, the spices are in my zone even though I don’t use most of them. A lot of their bakeware is in my zone. I also have the flour, sugar, and oats in my countertop space, but it makes the most sense to keep them there on the counter even though the only one I use is the sugar. If we had a bigger kitchen, we would have more options but we make the most of what we have. 

Yes, we do have two toaster ovens and two coffee makers due to the risk of cross-contamination of my food.  

The one thing we did not do in our big clean out and rearrangement was switch out the shelf liner. I would have liked to have done it, but I knew it would slow down the process significantly. So for now we simply wiped down all the shelves, washed everything, and organized things where they made the most sense.

I’m really pleased with the results and this is a huge item done on my to do list! 

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