Organization: Creating A Baking Station

OK, I'm usually pretty organized with my home. OK, take that back. I know how to be organized in my home, and generally most things in my home are organized. I also may have mentioned a time or two how tiny my kitchen is. (In case I didn't, it is really small. 8' wide and 12' long. Not including the cabinets and appliances. And it is L shaped. And closed off from the rest of the house. And also serves as our main entrance.)

Anyway, when we moved, I set up my cupboards, and for the most part, that is how things have stayed. But now, I'm baking bread every other day, and making yogurt a couple times a week, and just baking more in general, and it was starting to drive me crazy that I had all the flour on one side of the kitchen, and then all of the other baking ingredients (baking powder, chocolate chips, molasses, etc.) on the other side of the kitchen.

So I decided to create a baking station. And then in the "old" cabinet, I moved the beans to a lower shelf and put the candles, etc. on the top shelf.

I do have a couple pictures to show you what the two areas look like now. I should have taken "before" pictures so you could really understand how silly I had things set up before, but I didn't think of taking pictures until after I had already moved things.

Here is a picture from the back door as you enter the kitchen (If the angle of the picture makes it look like the kitchen is really tiny, it is NOT an illusion. The kitchen opens into the dining room just past the refrigerator.) The cabinet that I moved things from isn't in the picture, but it is the upper cabinet on the right hand side of the stove. The cabinet I moved things to is an upper cabinet to the right of the sink.

The new baking station

On the counter - the bread slicing thing, the bread machine, baking utensils and yogurt maker.

First level (left and right) - Bigger cannisters hold things such as white flour, brown and white sugar, cornmeal, oatmeal, and salt. The mason jars hold different kinds of flour like oat flour, spelt flour, rice flour, buckwheat flour, etc. There is also gluten and dried milk in a couple of the smaller containers.

Second level (left side) - Baking soda, baking powder, cornstarch, cocoa, etc. Second level (right side) - cookbooks.

Third level (left side) - canned milk, pickling salt, lard, vanilla extract, peppermint extract, almond extract, etc. Third level (right side) - cookbooks.

This is the cabinet that used to have the baking soda, cornstarch, cocoa, canned milk, lard, etc. that I moved over to the other cabinet.

First shelf - peanut butter, honey, pasta.
Second shelf - dried beans, popcorn, barley, millet.
Top shelf - candles, lighter, votive holders.

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I do have another small cabinet that holds olive oil, grapeseed oil, and vinegar on one side, and herbal teas and hot chocolate on the other side. My last "food" cabinet has oatmeal, muesli on the bottom shelf, and spices on the top shelf. (I know it is an odd combination, but it was the way the shelving worked out.) I have a spice rack on the counter that contains the spices that I use the most, so it doesn't bother me too much to have to stretch a bit to get the more "uncommon" spices.