It seems to me that, no matter how many cupboards or storage cabinets a kitchen has, there never seems to be enough room for everything. We certainly lucked out with this place--we have almost twice the storage that we had in our last shoebox apartment. But with great size, come great possibilities. Seeing so much extra room made me realize that there are a lot of things that were previously in inaccessible places (the linen closet, shoved under our bed, sandwiched between cereal boxes on the top of the fridge--yeah, I got creative) that I might really like to have at my fingertips. So, after all of that every-week stuff found a spot that wasn't so hard to get to, it seemed like all of our regular kitchen stuff would have to be shoved on top of itself in the remaining space.

Luckily, there was a handy solution. The kitchen in this place has an empty space perfect for a set of shelves, a microwave cart or any other such unit one might find helpful.

Initially we were dead set on a stainless-steel traditional kitchen cart, like this one:

P.S. I like everything about this space. Photo courtesy of The Kitchn

Then it occurred to me that I had a perfectly usable option available to me, just sitting in my dining room. When we had our massive wall unit in the last apartment, it was comprised of various pieces of the Expedit series from IKEA. So I just took one of those pieces and turned it on its side. The results were some pretty great storage options--and additional counter space, too!

I prefer to keep all my dirty laundry aired, thank you very much.

I like having everything out in the open so that I can find things really easily--yes, I am that lazy--and the fact that things are hyper-compartmentalized is an added plus.

Here's the organization breakdown, up close and personal:

Duh, really good at drawing arrows. Winning.

That tupperware tub is an excellent catch-all and the best solution to the find-the-right-lid-to-the-container-you-just-put-your-salad-in problem I've encountered.

Also, my Slap Chop and Gratey are in there.

So, what do you think? Too messy looking for you? I personally love open-faced shelving. Almost as much as I love an open-faced lunch option.