Archive for April, 2011
Cooking Up Solutions For Your Kitchen Clutter
If your family is like most the kitchen is the heart of the home. This is truly evident in home construction and renovation over the past 10 years which fashion kitchens that open up to eating areas and family rooms. Yet with all of its prominence in the family it is usually one of the most disorganized rooms of the home. The constant stream of traffic and the home management that takes place here only adds to the chaos. So what can you do?
First start with a plan this is the underlying theme of all of my articles ndash; so now you know the secret to productive organizing! When you think about it the kitchen generally has four to five zones: food preparation cooking cleaning food storage and household management.
Food preparation takes place on a countertop and/or an island so that will be the best place to store knives measuring cups and spoons mixing bowls and any appliances related to preparing a meal. For cooking you will need utensils pots and pans baking dishes and toaster. This zone should definitely be next to the stove and if you are lucky your microwave will be conveniently housed above. Cleaning of course will be located under the sink and next to the dishwasher. Here you will store all your cleaners and sponges. If you have little ones around the house a child safety lock on this cabinet is a MUST! And finally food storage located near the fridge will need room not only for the food but the wraps and plastic storage items as well.
The household management zone is probably the one area that seems to take over the entire room and sometimes even oozes into the dining room. Paper is everywhere but you can never seem to find the one piece you need when you need it. And if you do it is splattered with spaghetti sauce. The key to this zone is to make sure that the only paper that is kept in the kitchen is active; paper; things that need to be acted upon. The paper that you need to keep in storage should be removed immediately and given a new home a home office perhaps. How the active paper is stored is a matter of personal preference but generally people choose either categorically pending folders like bills to be paid; calls to make; etc or periodically tickler folders based on a perpetual calendar. You will also need room for basic office supplies and postage material.
Depending on the size of your family and home the kitchen may also have to double as homework and craft zone. If that is the case then be sure to carve out some space for these things as well. A good solution for materials your children may need to access is a small bin or two in the bottom of a cupboard.
The kitchen can easily take an entire day to organize but if the thought is too overwhelming then break it into smaller tasks. Perhaps you start with the infamous junk drawer one day and move to cupboards the next. As you sort through the various things in your kitchen be sure to put them in piles of like items. You will quickly be able to see where you have too many of one item and thus find it easy to begin to part with things purging ndash; the hardest part of any organizing project!
Purge items that you no longer need or food that now qualifies as a science experiment. To help you with this effort make sure that you always have a bin for items to be donated. Sometimes you dont feel so bad getting rid of that kitchen chatchky; that you never used but paid good money for if you know that someone else will. Empty the trash often so that a full can does not become an excuse to keep something that you really dont use or need.
When the dust settles or better yet is wiped away and you are ready to put your kitchen in order be sure to make an investment in storage paraphernalia. Just like a carpenter the right tools make all the difference. Lazy Susans or spin trays will help you to maximize space in even the deepest corner. Expanding step shelves will ensure that the tomato paste does not get lost in the back of the panty. Drawerstyle pot and lid organizers will make getting down on your knees to find the skillet a thing of the past. And pullout shelves undershelf baskets and hanging storage organizers will allow you to make maximum use of even the smallest space.
So if your kitchen is the heart of your home do yourself a favor and lower your clutter; so that you can enjoy a long and healthy life.
About the writer: Kathy Jenkins is a Professional Organizer based in Richmond Virginia. Through her business Come To Order she offers residential professional organizing services tailored to meet the specific needs of her clients and she also operates a retail site for organizing products OrganizedAtoZ.com. She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers NAPO the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization NSGCD Faithful Organizers and Women Entrepreneurs of Virginia and serves as marketing director of NAPO Richmond. You may contact her through her website at www.cometoorderva.com.
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Contemporary Kitchen Style
As much as we would all love to have a kitchen that rivals those seen in the better home magazines and television shows many of us simply cannot foot that high cost for custom cabinets. So for many finding Installers providing contemporary kitchens is the best choice for a kitchen remodel.
Assembled kitchen designers are simply designers who work mainly with stock cabinets and can handle the design process as well. If a home owner chooses to tackle this project on their own there are also software titles that will help you in this process of designing your kitchen. If you would like to look into doing that simply put the search term online design tool into the search bar of your favorite search engine and you will get back quite a few great choices. Keep in mind that hanging contemporary kitchen cabinets is not as easy as many people think. To get a custom feel hiring a professional might be the best way to go.
When locating assembled kitchen designers or contractors who work with stock cabinets it is best to do a search with either your local chamber of commerce or even by checking with friends and neighbors who have had similar work done themselves. This is one of the best ways to find a company who is qualified and does quality work for reasonable prices. While price should not be the only qualifier in this time of economic down turn it is very important to choose someone who can work with your budget and not the other way around.
Installers providing contemporary kitchen style are usually listed in online directories as well with many even having their own websites for ease of locating them. Many of these businesses even provide planning and fitting services as well and will manage the entire kitchen project if you feel you want to move on after the cabinet work is done.
There are many choices of assembled kitchens. Designers will most often have books that will let you see their previous work helping you to envision how you wish your kitchen to look. They will have many choices of wood styles in cuts and hardware and will help you to pick what you will be comfortable with and that will fit into your homes current interior style. One of the newer ways to redo a kitchen cabinets in contemporary style is the mix and match placement taking what you like from one main style or culture and mixing it in with other styles as well as colors.
One of the biggest styles for kitchen cabinets to hit the showrooms lately is the glass panels in the cabinets doors or even having no panels at all. This gives a small kitchen the feeling of being much bigger than it is. Islands are still popular as well and are being made now in non kitchen type furniture pieces such as old dressers and breakfronts.
Whatever style of contemporary kitchen cabinets you choose locating installers providing contemporary kitchen style choices and installation is your first step to having the kitchen of your dreams and giving your home a look that will be with you for generations.
About the writer: Nasreen Haque
Bosch Washers Overview
Bosch washers are available as both free standing and builtin appliances as integration of appliances is becoming more and more popular especially for people who have cosier kitchens than others. If you have a separate utility room then space is something that you probably will not need to worry about and a free standing Bosch washer will cause you no problems in terms of available room.
Like most of the appliances that are currently available from Bosch the models are split into three different groups according to their specifications. The higher specification free standing washers are the models in the Bosch Logixx group. The more basic and lower specification free standing washers are in the Bosch Classixx group and the midrange specification free standing Bosch washers are in the Exxcel group. As can be imagined the higher the specification of each model and the better the group the model is the higher the price is so it is really about balancing just how many features you really need on your washer compared to how much money you have spare to spend on one.
There are only two built in modern washers available at this moment in time from Bosch and both are 60cm wide so remember to measure up carefully before you have one installed. The WIS28440GB is one of the built in options. It has a drum capacity of 7kg which is typical of the washers that are available from the Exxcel range. It easily handles heavy washing loads so that you save time and money. This washer also has an A class wash performance A energy efficiency rating and an A class for spin drying. The spin speed of this particular model has a maximum of 1400rpm.
There are four Bosch washers available in the premium Logixx range including one with a massive drum capacity of 10kg. This is around about big enough to wash everybody’s clothes on the street. However impressive though it is not always entirely necessary. And one thing that you may not have considered is whether you have the space to dry 10kg of clothes once you have washed them. If you have a big family that demands a large drum capacity then the WBB24756GB model is definitely a great choice but if you are single or a couple living on your own then something smaller would probably be more beneficial.
The Exxcel range of washers offers the largest choice of colours of all the groups of washing appliances that Bosch currently has to offer. There is even the option of a black washer. This model is the WAE2446BGB. It has a top pin speed of 1200rpm and a drum capacity of 7kg. Very similar models with very similar specifications to this one are also available within the Exxcel range in different colours: white or silver. White is usually the option that mot people go for but if you are after something a little bit different the black model fits in really well with a sleek modern kitchen.
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Braeg Heneffe has worked in the Kitchen Appliances industry for over 10 years. He runs a website and promotes all major brands.
He specializes in Bosch Washers
