Behind closed doors

I don't know about you guys, but I LOVE looking in other people's medicine cabinets, linen closets, kitchen cupboards, and refrigerators to see how they organize it all and what kind of products or food they have.  LOVE IT.  So, if I have ever been to your house, it's very safe for you to assume that I snooped in one if not all of the above mentioned places...probably more than once.  And definitely will again.

So, when another blog I like to read, Young House Love, recently showed the inside of their fridge, I decided to copy suit and show you guys around our kitchen cabinets and fridge.  And speaking of fridge...we have a new one!  Not brand new from the store, and not new to Matt, but new to our kitchen.  Confused?  Well, it's the in-laws old fridge, which they very graciously unloaded onto us when they got a sparkling new one.  Our old fridge came with the house and is probably at least 10-15 years old, which is no big deal, but the freezer has always had a problem with leaking water and creating giant icebergs of ice all over the inside.  And the freezer never really stayed as cold as we would have like it to.  Which made my paranoid brain all crazy with contaminated fear of the frozen meat not freezing enough to be safe to eat.  Ahhhh!

Anyway, Friday night Matt went off to Hillsboro and picked up the fridge, then came home and drove his truck into the backyard (so awesome to see a truck in the backyard, seriously.) and we unloaded the newish fridge into the kitchen, and brought the old one out to the garage (to hopefully be sold on craigslist).

Ok, so I never actually got a picture of the black hole fridge in the kitchen, mainly because it just looked like a giant black blob in all pictures, but check out the stove/microwave area, and then picture a fridge looking about the same way:

Here's the fridge space, minus said fridge (view from the sink):

And the view from the stairs (going up, to the right of the photo above):

Matt kept saying how big the kitchen seemed without the fridge in there, which it did, but alas we need a fridge.  Here's the new (to us) fridge all plugged in and cleaned up!

Show stealing dog vs cat fight going on at this time too

So, as you can see from the above picture...all of the other kitchen appliances are black (stove, microwave, and dishwasher), so the newish fridge definitely does not match at all, but we figure unmatching appliances for a couple months is muuuch better than a leaking freezer.  And it also gives us a chance to try out the side by side style of the fridge/freezer, vs our old freezer on top-fridge on bottom style.  So far I'm liking it ok, I like not having to bend over to look in the fridge, but the inside feels a lot smaller, with the fridge space being about half as wide. So it's a good trial run for this style (since we plan on getting a new fridge this winter).   Here's the inside shot, for you nosey types ( I love nosey types):

As you can see, we aren't extreme freezer users, but it's good piece of mind to know it will all stay frozen now.

As you can also see, we are extreme condiment users.  And speaking of extreme condiments, here is what the counter tops looked like, after the old fridge was emptied out:

Yeee gods.  We ended up throwing out about 1.5 garbage bags full of expired condiments, left overs, and old food I had forgotten we even had.  Case in point, there were three different bottles of bloody mary mix in the fridge, all opened and all expired.

And just for the heck of it, here's the inside of our other cabinets, starting with the food cabinet, which is the upper cabinet, to the right of the stove/microwave:

And yes I'm psycho about all the labels facing front and everything being straight.  Like my owl toothpick holder?!  Mamma Deb gave the to me after I mentioned I am nuts about owl stuff lately. :)

Here's the corner cabinet, to the right of the one above, which hold our plates/dishes:

We received the black dishes as a wedding present (Momma Deb again) and I love them (but they chip really easily), and hope to transition over to white dishes at some point...I'm thinking I'll add a little bit at a time (hence the white bowls).

Here is the third and last upper cabinet, to the right of the kitchen sink, which houses our glasses/mugs/glass ware...And yes I have two Dunder Mifflin coffee mugs:

We also have three drawers in the kitchen, and here they are....I think you can figure out what each one is used for:

Top:



Middle:

And bottom:

There are also two bottom corner cabinets, but they are a disgrace right now and need to be organized, so you're little butts will have to wait on those.

But what do you think of the new-ish fridge?  Do you like having a side by side or are you a freezer on the bottom or freezer on the top person?  Do you like condiments a little too much like we do? :)

~S~