A story from a shelving enthusiast
As an expert in everything to do with racking shelving, I am delighted when people get in touch with me to tell me how they have benefited from it. Here is a message I received recently.
If anyone owns a home built in the 1950’s you probably share my struggle with a painfully small kitchen. We own a 1952 bungalow with about 1200 sq feet total and all of 64 sq feet is the kitchen. Once you put in a refrigerator, stove, counter tops, and dishwasher there is just about enough room for me, my husband (when I can’t shoo him away from the dinner table), a recycle bin and that’s about it.
Not that a kitchen should contain much more, but I need some space! I can’t have any of my major appliances open at the same time. The oven door hits the dishwasher door which hits the refrigerator door. As a matter of fact, the other day my husband wanted me to make his favorite juice. (He had been nice to me all week so it was the least I could do) Down onto all fours I went to dig through the hidden small appliances. A fryer, a salad dryer, a mixer, bowl, vase; you name it and it’s in the cabinet. And it all had to come out just to get the strainer.
As I looked about the floor at all of the many gadgets that are supposed to make life easier, I became a little sad at the thought of having to put all of this stuff back. As if on queue my husband walks in and asks what’s the problem. I explain it all to him and he actually has a good idea this time. ‘Why don’t we just install some shelving above the recycle bin and then you can keep all your cooking toys out where you can get to them?’ His idea was spot on, We both went to the computer room to look up ideas for our new shelving unit.
We found the website to our local hardware store and found a wide variety at pretty reasonable prices. At this point my husband knew his job was done (I have 100% control of decorating decisions.), so he went to walk the dog. To his surprise, I still had not made up my mind by the time he came home. After searching on the computer for what seemed like days, I finally gave up and decided to sleep on the idea.
I know this may sound a little strange but I had a dream about my kitchen and all the shelving I had looked at on the Internet. One plastic shelving unit in particular caught my mind’s eye and when I awoke, I knew that it would be a perfect addition. One week’s worth of waiting for the shelving unit to be delivered, and about 45 minutes of set up and I was once again happy with our home. To my surprise, my friends love the set up. I thought I was just being practical, but I have received so many compliments that I am embarrassed. Of course my husband always jumps in any conversation about our shelving unit and says, ‘Well, you know, it was all my idea.’ For once, we can agree on the creator of an idea, and it was a mighty good one at that!
I hope you found this interesting, and I look forward to bringing you more first-hand experiences in future articles.
