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Hey guys! I’ve been spending a few days in Chicago, but I just wanted to pop online and say hello. I also wanted to just post something kind of silly for today because let’s face it: here in the U.S., people are feeling rather worn out. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m really looking forward to Wednesday when things (hopefully) go back to people posting too many photos of their kids on Facebook and arguing over the color of a dress.
Question: When it comes to houses, organizing, and design flaws, is there one that bothers you the most? I’m talking those little, usually completely absurd things that irk you for some inexplicable reason. I had this thought come to me the other day as I was making coffee at my parents’ house. Do you see it?
It’s totally nitpicky, but kitchen layouts seem to be one of those things that I have strong opinions on and an irrational desire to “fix”. In Mom’s case, it was that she didn’t have the coffee mugs in the cabinet directly over her coffee maker — silly of course, but I couldn’t help but notice it. There were filters, coffee grounds, and all sorts of coffee-related supplies, but the mugs? Two cabinets over on the other side of the stove.
Of course, Mom can (and should!) make any decision she wants in how she organizes her kitchen, but this is one of those things I had to confess and call myself out on. I have similar feelings about things like silverware drawers not being near the stove or drinking glasses not being near the fridge. At this point, she may even keep it like this on purpose because of my disproportional irritation at being minorly inconvenienced (and I’m laughing at myself here, too — fully aware of how this bothers me and me alone). So, just curious: is there anything like this that drives you bananas? I can’t be the only one!
P.S. Just so you guys know, I didn’t publish this without Mom’s knowledge – she was the one who helped me clear off the counter so I could take the pic. ;)
Well, we’ve only been in our new (to us) home about 3 months.
Some things that bother me so far: The upper cabinets are too high and far from the kitchen side for
me (5′ tall) to reach. I have to go into the dining area or the family room to reach them, and then it’s bottom
shelf only without a step, lol. Of course, given the layout, closer and lower cabinets would have closed our
kitchen in (pics on Little Pond blog), so I live with it.
Another is the hallway storage area. It opens to both the hallway and the utility room on the other side.
Nice, right? Yes, but on the hallway side, it’s set back from the other doors/hallway about 3 feet. That’s
room to put another cabinet and more storage! Maybe one day we’ll build our own there, who knows.
No pics of that, but it’s a funny ‘bother’.
Nothing major, but like you, I like glasses near the fridge, towels near the sink, ect.
Oh I TOTALLY get this! We visited a friend for a few days a while ago (they have 3 kids, we have two). Their everyday glasses were on the total other side of the kitchen, basically in a dining room cabinet, which meant that when they emptied the dishwasher there was lots and lots of walking back and forth. The cabinet right over her dishwasher, which was a great double door cabinet with three shelves, was totally and completely full of their “mug collection” of 50-60 mugs! I get having a collection but the majority of the mugs needed to be relocated, leaving a few that are used everyday, so that the day to day glasses could be right over the dishwasher and next to the sink!
This made me laugh! I’m guilty like your mom – everything is placed in proximity to ease of emptying the dishwasher – a chore that I dislike sooooo much.
I thought you were talking about the plate hanging over the top shelf. LOL
I have such a small kitchen, it wouldn’t matter where I stored the mugs. I could just stand in the middle of the room and pivot. :-) (The mugs and glasses are stored to the right of the sink, btw.)
Overall:
-When the kitchen doesn’t have a drawer wide enough for a silverware tray. Seriously, who DOES that? If it’s not wide enough for even a small tray, it’s not wide enough for anything!
-Badly located HVAC intakes–particularly if they’re close to bedrooms. The apartment I’m moving out of has the intake basically IN the bedroom, and I hear it pretty much every time it kicks on. Very annoying. During my condo hunt I actually nixed a couple places I viewed for reasons like this.
-In-the-way water heater. Place I’m leaving has it in a closet in the bathroom. . . where it’s too big for the doors to actually open properly, and I wound up taking them off. Another place I viewed had it under the stairs in the living room, of all places, and it was perfectly clear that it caused quite a bit of water damage when the old one died.
-Non-digital thermostats. Can’t wait to upgrade the one in the new place, blarg.
-Doors you have to fight to open and/or close, whether that’s because the door itself doesn’t fit or because the knobs are wonky.
-Bathroom light switches located outside the bathroom.
-Boob lights.
Bad organizational habits that I’ve had to change, and cannot fathom why these small changes are not each A Thing:
-Keeping shoes in a cabinet by the main exit of the house. Wearing them around indoors tracks a lot of dirt around, and storing them in the bedroom usually led to having like, two very heavily used pairs by the front door and five pairs I forgot I even had. By the door it is.
-Having a hook for my keys right by the front door. Really goes a LONG way to keep me from losing them, and have been trying SO hard to get my mom to adopt this trick. She loses her keys all the time. XD
-Storing my toolbox in my craft room. Lots of my household tools get used for crafting, and a surprising number of my craft tools get used for household stuff. Segregating them is just inefficient and irritating.
-Having hooks for broom, mop, swiffer, toilet brush, etc. Letting them flop around in the corners just leads to getting poked in the face by handles.
And lastly: badly organized computer files. If you have a system where you can’t find anything, it’s not a system! Yes, Grandpa, I’m talking to you, because I’ve seen how long it takes you to find a photo simply because you can’t remember if you filed it by the family member who is IN the photo or the one who TOOK it. Also, disorganized files are harder to back up, just sayin’.
. . . I just realized that I apparently have a LOT more pet peeves than I thought I did, lol; I’m kind of amazed that my realtor didn’t kill me now.
I betchya a lot of moms have this pet peeve: The child (ahem, he’s 22 years old) who can manage to get his dirty dishes to the counter above the dishwasher, but for some reason cannot bend his 5’9″ frame enough to actually open the dishwasher and put his dirty dishes into it.
My other kitchen complaint…I live in a condo where the kitchen is a pretty good size (as in, I have enough cabinet space for all my junk) even though it is a very odd shape, pentagon with unequal sides, all of them. Whoever designed the layout totally forgot about that kitchen triangle thing, where the fridge, sink, and stove make some sort of triangle. Not mine. Nope. The fridge and the stove couldn’t be any further apart.
Love all your stories!
Not a mom, but I get irritated with my husband for this. He works more hours than me, so I do most of the housework. In the past, the roles have been switched, so he knows damn well what it’s like, but we’ve recently moved into a much bigger place and I don’t think he realizes how much more time I spend cleaning. Last night I made chili and cornbread. He commented on how filling it was and then put his empty bowl on the counter above the dishwasher. When I discovered it later I asked him why he did that and his excuse was, “I wasn’t sure if I was gonna have more later.” Bullshit! You just said you were full! At least rinse the bowl before it dries on…
It’s not completely impractical, but I have family with a big kitchen with empty cabinets, yet everything is stored on the counters. It makes me
Nuts!
Ugh our entire kitchen layout is terrible but the thing that drives me crazy the most is the location of our silverware drawer. We only have one drawer big enough for our silverware tray and it’s kind of outside of the main kitchen area (we have a peninsula that kind of separates the kitchen from what we’ve made the dining room) in the built in desk. Actually built in desk areas in kitchens annoy me, too so I guess this one is a double whammy. Anyway you basically have to leave the kitchen to get silverware and it’s silly.
OH the peninsula itself actually makes me rage too because it ends a couple of feet in front of the fridge so if the fridge is open you can’t get from the kitchen to the dining area without going all the way around through the study, into the foyer, and down the hallway.
For some reason, the ppl building my kitchen hung the upper cabinets to the right compared to the lower cabinets by about 2″. I didn’t notice it until I had the backsplash done over the stove!! I would have thought they hung the wrong cabinets (like say, an 18″ was supposed to go on the left, and a 20″ on right, and they swapped them) or didn’t have space for two cabinets the right size or the wall is crooked but no…..they are the same size cabinets and even have a couple inches wide gap on the far side of each cabinet where they don’t meet the corner! this is concealed by strips of wood, but like, why didn’t they just move the cabinets to center?! I’ve contemplated doing it myself, but then the tiles of my backsplash wont be centered!
No one else seems to notice but me, but it really bugs me!
The dishes near where they are used and near the dishwasher is a catch 22 for a lot of older homes. since most did not get planned with having a dishwasher. That’s the issue in my 50s house. But when we re-design. I plan to know where I’m going to put my “areas” and then make sure the dishwasher is central to all of them then the sink. I’ll probably end up with the range/ oven on the back wall and the sink/ dishwasher in the island for this reason.
There are tons of legitimate complaints I have when dealing with layout – like the builder who put two tiny square closets in, and then made an “L shaped” layout with the wire shelves. WHY?! It would have been better to do one row, this way the hangers just bump into each other, leaving at least half of one of the shelves as dead space, but whatever.
Forget legitimate concerns though – far and away my silliest pet peeve is when, and this is totally true, there’s no good space to put a Christmas Tree. I take what I can my Christmas Tree Pilgrimage to the mountains of NC every year, so it’s VERY IMPORTANT TO ME. When I went house hunting I paid attention to where I would put the tree in every house (we house hunted in May). I knew my house when I walked in and said “OMG, the tree can go RIGHT THERE!”
Lauren, I did the same thing with the Christmas tree location while looking for a house. The house we ended up buying has a partial bay window in the front and I knew that would be our tree location! It’s still my favorite spot in the house, no matter the season!
Well It”s her home so did as the way she wanted, You can make changes with the help of her opinion. Loved the way you post.
YES I am totally a coffee mugs above the coffee maker sort of person! Guests (at least when I am a guest in someone’s home) naturally look in the cabinet above for all coffee supplies INCLUDING mugs! I am totally in your boat on this one.
I also hate pillows on the floor!
I just moved my Keurig to the other side of my cabinet. Now my cups are not above the coffee maker…. which is okay, because the cups are still close to my fridge ~ where the cream and Kerrygold Butter (bullet proof coffee) are. ;)
So many things!
Something that is NOT design related is when I go to someone’s house for a meal and they don’t keep the salt & pepper on the table. Drives me bonkers! Then I have to ask where it is in a strange house and then get up in the meal to get it. That’s why I always keep salt and pepper on the table.
In showing several houses, builders are putting door locks on closets…the locking side on the inside. I mean, what? I can’t even fathom a scenario where someone needs to be in the closet and lock themselves in.
And don’t even get me started on visiting someone’s house and they don’t have extra toilet paper somewhere easily accessible from the toilet… maddening. Simply and entirely maddening!
I built a coffee/hot chocolate bar just to organize all the hot drink good, I’m OCD about my kitchen organization. It all has to flow and be together.