A real-life look into my little apartment kitchen. Because I know you know you’re nosy.
I did a deep-clean of my kitchen and dining room a couple of weeks ago and thought it would be a perfect opportunity to take a few photos and share my kitchen space with you.
I’m doing this for a couple of reasons:
1.) I know you people are nosier than you let on. We all are.
2.) I think that we have a general expectation that blogger kitchens look like something off of Pinterest. Honestly, I just want to show you how untrue that is! Many of us are just working with what we’ve got – in my case, a small kitchen in our rented apartment. We have very little real counter space, have to get creative with storage, and live with bills sticking out of the decorative bowl on the dining room table and photography boards stuffed in the corner.
Here’s my point: You don’t have to have a Pinterest-worthy kitchen to make Pinterest-worthy food. Believe it or not, this kitchen is about 3 times the size of my old kitchen (really, I’m not exaggerating for once in my life), but I still found a way to make even that sad situation work.
Bonus point: I rarely clean this extensively. This ish needed to be documented.
So let’s take a tour, shall we? This is real life. Let’s do it.
The view in the photo above is when you come in the back door, which is the one we use most of the time. I can’t show you the back door itself, because at the moment I took these photos it had a few days worth of recycling and discarded shipping boxes (#bloggerproblems) sitting by it. Real life, remember?
This is the only real counter space in the kitchen. Usually it is covered with dishes drying on a dish rack. We wash so many dishes around here that it is rare for the dish rack to get put away. Please note the Liverpool Football Club mug that I gave Boyfriend for his birthday the day before this. Also the cup that was…appropriated from my college cafeteria. Note that I personally did not take it, I just…gave it a home afterwards. Moving on.
Here we have my tiny apartment stove, complete with chicken breasts poaching to use for dinner. Things that drive me crazy about this stove: No window in the oven door, and no timer (I use the microwave timer). I do, however, love the gas range.
See that little cast iron skillet hanging on the wall? That was given to me by my mom’s best friend (who is a second mother to me) and belonged to her mother, and her mother before her. I was incredibly touched that Sheila chose me to be its next keeper, and I feel like, with it hanging next to my stove, I have Southern grandmothers blessing every meal I make.
This is my main workspace. Chopping veggies, mixing cookie dough, rolling pie crust…it pretty much all happens here. Next to that we have the microwave, which, aside from serving its intended purpose and as the kitchen timer, also serves as storage space for the bourbon, butter dish, and cat treats. Basically all of life’s necessities. Oh, and the burn ointment. Can’t forget that.
Yes, I find myself needing it frequently enough that it lives in the kitchen. Oops.
Now we’ll head into the dining room. Note that having company gets interesting as we have only two chairs. We eat in the living room…a lot.
To the left we have our combo coffee and bar cart. To the right we have (generally nonperishable) food items I have either bought in bulk at Costco or had sent to me by companies, neither of which I can find room for in the actual kitchen. Also, my boards for photos. Pretty much all of my photos are taken on that dining room table. The lighting is great, thanks to two big windows, and the location is convenient. The farther I have to carry food through the house, the more chance there is to spill.
I have a few of my photos hanging on my walls, though I would still like something to go on that main wall. Preferably two of something, given the wall configuration. Suggestions accepted.
This is the portion of my apartment that is most carefully curated. Can you guess my favorite color? 😉
A few of my favorite things in this corner of the world: My Vermont Rolling Pins given to me by Boyfriend, the Anthro teacup given to me by my bestie, and my vintage Pyrex mixing bowls given to me by Boyfriend’s momma. I’m also pretty fond of that photo of my parents and I.
Yes, one of our drawers is missing its drawer pull. It kept coming unscrewed and drove me batty, so it lives in the drawer itself now. Also, yes, my Better Life Bags camera bag lives in the kitchen. Might as well, since that’s where I use it the most!
Couldn’t get through a tour of the kitchen without the cat food making an appearance, could we? (Also, did you spy one of the kittens earlier in the post? She was quite the helper in taking these pictures.)
This is my little built-in that I adore. There used to be matching ones on either side of the kitchen, but they had to take out one of them to make more counter space when they renovated the kitchen for me. I was a little bummed, but I still make good use of the remaining one. This is where most of my blog props live. It probably looks like chaos to an outside eye (and Boyfriend’s), but I actually have everything arranged perfectly, much like a jigsaw puzzle.
My mind is a scary place to live.
And that’s it! Oh, wait…
Meow!
Ok, now I’m done. (Also, I promise I’m sober.) Hope you enjoyed this tour of my real life, slightly cluttered, little kitchen. Now, let’s get to cookin’!
Love this Stephie!! And, from all of us (meaning me and The Internet) thank you for not clearing off the top of your fridge. Because I mean let’s be real.
Oh heavens. We depend on that for storage space! We are lucky I even went so far as to wipe off the little bits of pesky onion skin that were hanging out up there. 😉
Your cat! So sweet. I loved this post, and think I should now do one with my little kitchen.
You should! I’m the nosiest of nosy and would love to creep!
I feel like I need to remake your apron, so that it matches, or at least coordinates with your dishes. Cora is such a helper. Almost as good as a beagle. I think that Bucky is watching over your cooking. She would have been as thrilled as Ma-Ma would have been.
Alma, meanwhile, was snoozing in the other room. typical.
I SO love behind the scenes posts like this! Love it love it!
Love that old frying pan, the photo of your family, and everything else x 1 billion.
xo
I may have cried a little when I was given that frying pan. It’s seasoned as heck, too, since it’s about a million years old. I love it.
Your kitchen is so cute! I’m super nosy and love seeing people’s space. I too have an oven without a timer…it drives me insane! I want to do a kitchen tour now too!
Please do! I want to be nosy in your kitchen. 🙂
What a great post!
I didn’t even notice the knob on the drawer was missing! I was too busy looking at all the fabulous “stuff” on display. I know of two original cat paintings you could hang in those bare spaces in the dining room 😉
OMG I just died laughing. Touché.
I LOVE IT!!!
1-that’s about how much space I have and it is such an upgrade from my old apartment
2-We have the same microwave!
3-Your kitchen and dining room are SOOO cute and homey! love them!
4-I have a lot of that pretty blue color in my kitchen too 😉
5-Gas ranges are the beeest. I have an electric one now and I HATE it-the electric oven is nice (although I still have no window to see inside) but ugh….I miss gas stoves.
I grew up with an electric range so I know how to work them, but I wouldn’t want to go back if I can help it!
I love this post! I’ve been wanting to do this too, but need to do the deep clean and just haven’t gotten myself to that overwhelming day yet. 😉
Beautiful, adorable kitty too! 🙂
Seriously, it took me like 2 days to get this cleaning stuff done. Who has time for that?? 😉
Your kitchen and home ooooooh it’s so cute! I love how much sunlight you get and I’m jealous of all your cute organizing apparatuses. You’ve got so much kitchen and I just want to hang out in it!!
I’ve got a chair for you and a chair for me! No boys allowed because there aren’t more chairs! Head on over 😉
I’ll trade you one oven door with a window for a gas range! Seriously, this was a fun read.
Haha! There are days I might make that trade…
This was so fun! I’m totally nosy…we really can’t help it, can we?? You make such great use of your space! Adorable 🙂
Hi Stephanie – Thanks so much! I think nosiness must come with the blogging territory…it’s all that social media stalking, ya know 😉
Love the kitchen cabinets and counters! Sooooo much better than mine. All my kitchen space has become taken over by baby crap. I love that built in!!
I love this kitchen! I think it’s adorable. I love your cute little stove, your cat, and all of the white. And I had a laugh at your Pinterest comment- too funny. My kitchen is always trashed! Thanks for the sneak peek and for keeping it real 😉
Usually mine is trashed, too! Thus the deep spring cleaning. 😉
I have no doubt that Mama (aka Bucky) bragged about this blog post to all of her angel BFF’s. I’m sure that she is thrilled to life (I assume in the hereafter that’s what one says) that her little skillet is living happily ever after with someone who understands the value of well-seasoned iron.
Haha, thrilled to life – I love it. I love you! xoxo
It is so interesting to see the kitchens of other bloggers. Yes, I am insanely jealous of those with more bench space than me ( think I have the kitchen space that you had before this one, but I tend to use the coffee table for rolling dough etc) and I guess my enthusiasm about this post proves your point that yep, I am nosy. Is that bad? Anyway, you did an AMAZING cleaning job. Can you come clean my kitchen? Wait, scratch that. I don’t want to be nosy AND lazy. That would definitely be bad! 😉 Awesome post! xx
Yes, we can take one or the other and you clearly already chose nosy. 😉
Yep, totally nosey! I love seeing how everyone keeps their kitchen organized. LOVE your dishes. Teal is my all-time favorite color. Those pyrex dishes are gorgeous!
Aren’t they amazing? I about fell over when she gave them to me for Christmas. She clearly knows me well!