Author: Staci

Staci blogs about travel at TheVoyageer.com.

Colorful Kitchen Inspiration

To wrap up my week dwelling on things you can put in your kitchen, both essential and trivial, I thought I would take a trip to fantasyland for a little while and share some wonderful colorful kitchens I’ve pinned on Pinterest.

Every few days, I’ll check the apartment rental market and the condo sales market in San Diego just for fun. I see so many boring flipped kitchens with the same old predictable colors and finishes. These are so different and so exciting! No cherry cabinets with black granite countertops here! (Can we all agree that that combination comes off very heavy?) Experimenting with color is also an inexpensive way to freshen up a kitchen while saving the big bucks for a full kitchen overhaul a few years down the line.

Click each image to be taken to its website.

Color Cabinets - Photo by Magnus Anesund

The first time I saw this picture, I was so excited that I dragged Doug over to the computer and made him check it out. One must really be a color expert to pull this off because bright colors, if they aren’t tempered with enough gray and brown, can look circus-y really fast. It works sooo well here because everything else is white, white, white. Even the floors have been whitewashed or limed to achieve the white wood effect. I would love to see this in a commercial space setting.

House Beautiful

This is an easy project anybody nervous about committing to color can handle. Don’t want to make an irreversible mistake on the cabinets? Painting the inside of the cabinet is really easy to change when the mood strikes.

Blue Kitchen Space

I love the way the smallness of this kitchen is celebrated. I feel like if the blue walls were white, the area would seem even smaller–with the bold shade of blue, the area is like, “I’m here, I may not be huge but I’m stylish. Now cook amazing meals here.”

Ursula Mayer for Schorn & Groh.

How about bringing the color into the room via countertops? What an unexpected punch of color! Plenty of retro kitchens have tile accents on the counter, but this sleek slab of pink is absolutely scene-stealing!

I feel like a kitchen that’s exciting to simply be in would be exciting to cook in. Let the creativity flow!

What do you think? Would you take a big color risk in the kitchen? 

5 Awesome but Totally Unnecessary Kitchen Tools

File these under “For the person who has everything.”

Like the title says, these things are awesome, but if you don’t have them… you will probably still live a wonderful and fulfilling life.

5 Awesome but Unnecessary Kitchen Tools

  1. An ice cream maker is totally unnecessary but awesome to have. Case in point–we got one (not the one pictured) and have made ice cream a few times by now! The one pictured plays ice cream truck music when it’s ready, and since it has a compressor, cools itself down instead of having to store the drum in the freezer. Nice features, if you can afford them.
  2. Copper cookware will last forever and is the best conductor of heat–but that kind of luxury has a price! The set shown will cost about a grand.
  3. Using a juicer is a great commitment that one can make towards their health. If I were to buy a juicer, I would get this one. It gives you a little bit of fruit/veggie pulp (read: more of the nutrients) while still taking some pulp out so the smoothie is still drinkable.
  4. An espresso machine. Yes, I have a Nespresso. No, I don’t need it. Yes, it’s awesome. Enough said? Stop looking at me like that!
  5. Novelty fruit tools. Okay, I lumped these together. People have been eating fruit perfectly fine for thousands of years without fancy tools! I mean… at one point I’m sure people used rocks and sharpened sticks to make yummy fruit goodness happen. However…. I know from experience that if you have a whole bag of cherries that you want to be pit-less, and fast, that investing in a cherry pitter is a big step towards time and sanity.

Anything you care to add?? Or, do you think any of these items are necessary? Share your opinion in the comments! 

The 5 Kitchen Tools You Need

When I thought up this post, I wanted to do an experiment. “If I could only have five kitchen tools, what would they be?” Excluding tabletop items like plates and silverware, here’s what I came up with, and my rationale.

Top 5 Kitchen Tools

  1. Every kitchen needs an 8-inch chef’s knife. This much is a given. Get a sharp one with a nice point, and you can do most of your detail-work, paring, with it as well (although paring knives are safer since they’re less unwieldy). I wholly recommend this one–my favorite feature is the hollows along the edge, which reduce the effect of food clinging to the knife after you’ve made your cut. A great chef’s knife can also be used to peel/smash garlic.
  2. If you make the investment of a good knife, you must have a cutting board to keep it in shape. The people who lived in the apartment before us just used… the kitchen counter. There are cut marks all over and it’s so awful–not to mention bad for the knife’s blade! Getting a good cutting board (wood or plastic) is very important. And never, ever use a knife on tile, glass, stone, or metal. Just don’t! If you get a large and attractive cutting board, you can also use it for tons of other things. Decor, serving tray, perched on an ottoman to make it a coffee table? All of the above.
  3. If I could only have one pot/pan, I would get a nice large sauté pan (with lid). The large surface area on the bottom can be used like a skillet (frying pan), but the high sides and lid can act as a saucepan or stockpot to make rice or even soup or chili, if you have to. This one in particular has some slope to it which makes it almost wok-like, too. Every pan has its own use, but this one is a nice, useful hybrid and can perform lots of duties in a pinch.
  4. My go-to item for stirring, flipping, everything is my bamboo spatula. If you want to cheat on this “five tools” challenge, you can grab this set, which is what I have used for years and I loooove. Bamboo holds up really nicely (I prefer it to regular light-wood spoons or turners) and will not damage nonstick pans. Overall, one should avoid using metal utensils in any pots and pans unless it’s a non-coated stainless steel pan.
  5. The sauté pan I listed above can go in the oven, but there’s just something about a rectangular, covered casserole dish that I wouldn’t want to be without. Use it for anything from casseroles to roasting meat, to brownies or cakes.

I hope this is encouraging to someone who watches the Food Network and sees the chefs using all this specialized gadgetry or walks into a kitchen store and gets glassy-eyed. You can create amazing meals at home with the most minimal of tools. Even someone with the smallest of kitchens surely has space for these… right?

But, just for fun… come back Wednesday for 5 unnecessary but awesome-to-have tools. ;)