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I chose the wrong fridge/freezer really ... but next time I'll have more of a clue what I'll want. It was the first one I'd ever bought so didn't really know how I'd use one.
My kitchen has limited cupboards too. I've four base unit cupboards (plates, bowls, silicone bakeware; dishes/loaf tins and lots of plastic takeaway boxes and some retained meal for one dishes that I use for a variety of uses; tins/jars/food; microwave dishes, collanders, slow cooker). I have two wall units: mugs and some sauces; all the dried goods/foods/pasta/custards etc).
My fridge is too large and mostly unused, so I use the top shelf to store a big collection of lock-n-lock style boxes and empty margarine tubs (kept "in case") that I often use to shape portions of slow cooker food for the freezer.
My 2nd shelf down I've set at just 2" high - that's a slot if I buy a pizza or a pie in the main and is mostly empty.
Bottom shelf benefits from the shelf above being just 2" high and so is large enough to hold bottles of squash - I also keep sauce bottles there, margarine and "most food".
The two salad drawers are usually just for storage of another couple of microwave cooking bowls and a stockpile (1-2 packs) of cheddar.
So, mostly, my fridge only contains: a tub of margarine, a block of cheese, a bottle of squash drink, a bottle of ketchup.
I could do with a smaller fridge, a larger freezer part .... and a decent double-width set of pan drawers for storing everything else.
Narrow base units simply don't store things well, due to size constraints. Deep pan drawers are better... or one good old-fashioned pantry.
My slow cooker takes up 1/8th of my kitchen storage space ... because having got a 3.5 litre slow cooker in there there's no room for anything else. That's just madness. Poor design.
I'm building a little utility extension soon - and the washing machine's going out there and at that point I might have a jiggle with kitchen base units and swap some out for two deep pan drawers. I have a space for a dishwasher in the kitchen, I've no dishwasher, so that's wasted space. I'd go from two single base units to two double-width pan drawers.0 -
I'm not miles from shops but frustratingly can't get to them nor manage inside them - so again another reason for large stocks. I have freezer inventories which I keep up to date though the same can't always be said for visiting offspring....;)caronc I have had cabin fever all day, it has poured for 24 hours non-stop until an hour ago
I have a tall fridge and a tall freezer side by side, with an overflow small chest freezer in the garage. This is empty until the allotment starts producing. My kitchen freezer is permanently full for all the reasons you say and also because of living miles from shops eg I have a whole drawer full of 500 ml containers of milk. I do put bread, scones and cakes in and they take another drawer. Meat and fish in another drawer, cooked food in a drawer and so on. I have labelled all the drawers and I am pretty good but sometimes things get stuffed anywhere there is a space. my neighbour cooks for two and she has only a small freezer but they take the car out almost every dayPasturesNew wrote: »
Tea was: Fish fingers on a hand-crushed minty pea layer, topped with a squirt of ketchup and all inside a big bread roll.
Yum - though salad cream for me as I'm not keen on ketchup:D0 -
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PasturesNew wrote: »I chose the wrong fridge/freezer really ... but next time I'll have more of a clue what I'll want. It was the first one I'd ever bought so didn't really know how I'd use one.
My kitchen has limited cupboards too. I've four base unit cupboards (plates, bowls, silicone bakeware; dishes/loaf tins and lots of plastic takeaway boxes and some retained meal for one dishes that I use for a variety of uses; tins/jars/food; microwave dishes, collanders, slow cooker). I have two wall units: mugs and some sauces; all the dried goods/foods/pasta/custards etc).
My fridge is too large and mostly unused, so I use the top shelf to store a big collection of lock-n-lock style boxes and empty margarine tubs (kept "in case") that I often use to shape portions of slow cooker food for the freezer.
My 2nd shelf down I've set at just 2" high - that's a slot if I buy a pizza or a pie in the main and is mostly empty.
Bottom shelf benefits from the shelf above being just 2" high and so is large enough to hold bottles of squash - I also keep sauce bottles there, margarine and "most food".
The two salad drawers are usually just for storage of another couple of microwave cooking bowls and a stockpile (1-2 packs) of cheddar.
So, mostly, my fridge only contains: a tub of margarine, a block of cheese, a bottle of squash drink, a bottle of ketchup.
I could do with a smaller fridge, a larger freezer part .... and a decent double-width set of pan drawers for storing everything else.
Narrow base units simply don't store things well, due to size constraints. Deep pan drawers are better... or one good old-fashioned pantry.
My slow cooker takes up 1/8th of my kitchen storage space ... because having got a 3.5 litre slow cooker in there there's no room for anything else. That's just madness. Poor design.
I'm building a little utility extension soon - and the washing machine's going out there and at that point I might have a jiggle with kitchen base units and swap some out for two deep pan drawers. I have a space for a dishwasher in the kitchen, I've no dishwasher, so that's wasted space. I'd go from two single base units to two double-width pan drawers.
I'm fortunate in that when the ex and I split I had to replace the full kitchen (walls, floors, electrics and everthing) due to his botched DIY job. The "silver lining" was I could design my cupboards units round what I knew I needed. :)A few things don't work so well for me now I'm not so mobile/bendy but mainly it's grand. If/when I ever move I'd prefer to pay less for something that needs "doing" up despite the nightmare that is rather than try and work around someone's elses "ideal" kitchen...0 -
....rather than try and work around someone's elses "ideal" kitchen...
Mine was a new build (not for me, I bought it 2nd hand) ... and they really just had a stock of kitchen units they shoved in I think. No "design" or thought, just "a bunch of kitchen units that fit the space".
The sink has a double cupboard under it - the pipework under that, from 1½ bowls, washing machine feed (and possibly dishwasher feed) ... is HUGE ... meaning one half is almost unusable. The other half ... is inaccessible as it has no door and so anything you want to put into that Black Hole of Calcutta also has to be squidged past the enormous waste piping. It's bizarre and atrocious!
I finally managed to at least get some things stored under the sink, so they were identifiable and retrievable, during a recent visit to poundland that had some plastic lidded containers that were a usable size. But that's it....
I've always "been scared of" stuff under the sink in any case, so never comfortable using that space in any kitchen.... it's just nasty/creepy/scarey and I worry about accessibility if ever there's a sudden/unexpected problem to resolve.
For worktops, there's a single piece in one corner - and a single piece in an opposite corner (kettle/toaster go there). Then there's a double piece where the nuker sits... and the mini oven sits beside that when I use it. There's another piece in corner 3 directly under the boiler (so unusable) and the final corner is beside the sink (so accumulates washing up waiting etc - and has no sockets anyway). So there's no real "working space" available.0 -
All this talk of fridges/freezers and kitchens combined with having just had to split a loaf of bread into individual slices to slot them into the available freezer space just had me outside in the outhouse measuring up to see if I could get a slim freezer in there. There is already a small chest freezer out there and I have a 50/50 fridge freezer in the kitchen.
However, I can't even squeeze a 48cm one in. So that means that I am just going to have to stop buying anything at all never mind how good a price it is and stop batch cooking and making crumbles/cakes/muffins and only eat what I have in the freezers. To be fair, I'm hardly going to have a limited diet, there is plenty of choice.
The only thing that will need to be replaced will be a loaf of bread because I never get through one before it goes stale but at the minute there is one and a half large loafs of wholemeal bread and two small sourdough ones and that isn't necessary.
There is also a lot of berries and I added 3 large bags of rhubarb yesterday and three of blueberries last weekend. I do think I have got too much into the habit of walking up to the supermarkets to see what y/s stuff there is, and when I do an online shop I have stocked up quite a lot on offers if only to get to the minimum amount to checkout.0 -
PasturesNew wrote: »Mine was a new build (not for me, I bought it 2nd hand) ... and they really just had a stock of kitchen units they shoved in I think. No "design" or thought, just "a bunch of kitchen units that fit the space".
The sink has a double cupboard under it - the pipework under that, from 1½ bowls, washing machine feed (and possibly dishwasher feed) ... is HUGE ... meaning one half is almost unusable. The other half ... is inaccessible as it has no door and so anything you want to put into that Black Hole of Calcutta also has to be squidged past the enormous waste piping. It's bizarre and atrocious!
I finally managed to at least get some things stored under the sink, so they were identifiable and retrievable, during a recent visit to poundland that had some plastic lidded containers that were a usable size. But that's it....
I've always "been scared of" stuff under the sink in any case, so never comfortable using that space in any kitchen.... it's just nasty/creepy/scarey and I worry about accessibility if ever there's a sudden/unexpected problem to resolve.
For worktops, there's a single piece in one corner - and a single piece in an opposite corner (kettle/toaster go there). Then there's a double piece where the nuker sits... and the mini oven sits beside that when I use it. There's another piece in corner 3 directly under the boiler (so unusable) and the final corner is beside the sink (so accumulates washing up waiting etc - and has no sockets anyway). So there's no real "working space" available.
I think that's a common issue with new builds - they put in the minimum to make look okay for the least cost
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Hollyharvey wrote: »All this talk of fridges/freezers and kitchens combined with having just had to split a loaf of bread into individual slices to slot them into the available freezer space just had me outside in the outhouse measuring up to see if I could get a slim freezer in there. There is already a small chest freezer out there and I have a 50/50 fridge freezer in the kitchen.
However, I can't even squeeze a 48cm one in. So that means that I am just going to have to stop buying anything at all never mind how good a price it is and stop batch cooking and making crumbles/cakes/muffins and only eat what I have in the freezers. To be fair, I'm hardly going to have a limited diet, there is plenty of choice.
The only thing that will need to be replaced will be a loaf of bread because I never get through one before it goes stale but at the minute there is one and a half large loafs of wholemeal bread and two small sourdough ones and that isn't necessary.
There is also a lot of berries and I added 3 large bags of rhubarb yesterday and three of blueberries last weekend. I do think I have got too much into the habit of walking up to the supermarkets to see what y/s stuff there is, and when I do an online shop I have stocked up quite a lot on offers if only to get to the minimum amount to checkout.
I know if I shopped frequently I'd need another freezer as I'd be unable to resist Y/S items.......;)
That said berries and fruit generally can be expensive so worth having stocks if you eat a lot of them.
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Hollyharvey wrote: »... I am just going to have to stop buying anything at all never mind how good a price it is and stop batch cooking and making crumbles/cakes/muffins and only eat what I have in the freezers. To be fair, I'm hardly going to have a limited diet, there is plenty of choice.
The only thing that will need to be replaced will be a loaf of bread because I never get through one before it goes stale but at the minute there is one and a half large loafs of wholemeal bread and two small sourdough ones and that isn't necessary.
...
I try NOT to freeze anything in the main, I see it as a "last resort short term store of food" else you just run out of space and then want a 2nd freezer....
It costs, I think, £30-40/year to run an appliance, so it would actually make sense for some things to simply be binned occasionally ... e.g. if you binned half a loaf twice a month ... on the basis it's cheaper to do that than to buy/run an additional freezer.
It's a tricky balance between many aspects that families simply don't really have to think about.0 -
I love my kitchen, its very small galley shaped but has units up to the ceiling. PN is on the right track, the best unit and the most used, is the one with two pan drawers. They are under the hob and I have a shallow drawer above them, holding all my utensils. I have masses of storage and an oven at waist height because I was sick of kneeling on the floor to get hot stuff out, a stupid design for older people especially. It was on order when my husband died and I quickly realised that I wouldn`t want to use a big oven on a day to day basis, so I had a small oven/microwave put in above the main oven. The upside with a small kitchen is that I hardly have to move my feet, so it isn`t exhausting
I did the marie kondo with my kitchen some months ago and got rid of anything I wasn`t using, including electrical appliances. I don`t have an electric kettle, just a hob kettle as it takes up less space. I got rid of my slow cooker because I have an induction hob and good pans that use heat efficiently, so I can have a pan on number 2 all day
I have a very good dishwashing bowl, its narrower and the drainer can sit in the bowl, so it leaves the draining board area free
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/25409/Joseph-Joseph-Wash-%26-Drain-Plus-Grey-and-Grey
I must admit that I am trying hard to keep the kitchen clear, especially in the evening, so its nicer when I come down in the morning0
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