The Adult Baking Cupboard

It's a bold statement, but I'm willing to say it; if anything in my apartment visibly belongs to an adult, it's my baking cupboard.

When I posted my original kitchen organization post, I had the baking cupboard located above my fridge, which several people pointed out was very stupid of me. Once again, it was just one of those things that I threw in place while unpacking and never returned to it. While baking isn't something I do on a daily or even weekly basis, it's something I like to do and I'd probably do it more if it didn't mean lifting several pounds of flour above my head and risking a concussion. With all the wasted height in my lower cupboards, and wasted depth in my baking cupboard, I decided to make the swap one evening.

(the horror)

My old baking cupboard now contains various appliances or gadgets that are rarely used (or in the case of my Tassimo, items just waiting for an owner to claim them on Craigslist). My baking cupboard now looks like this and I feel a swelling pride every time I look at it:

The baking cupboard is a mess to organize for most people. Even in my parents' home it still remains a point of frustration. How could it not be? Paper bags, powders, microscopic bottle of leaky red food colouring. Like a kitchen in general, you have to have a little bit of everything in order to really make it worth it; this gets messy.

I intend to make a whole post about shopping for your apartment at the dollar store, but I would just like to direct attention to this cupboard for the time being. All canisters you see are from Dollarama, and the shelf divider is from the previous cupboard. There are four different jar sizes (in addition to the tiny ones on the bottom left because who needs a whole pound of corn starch?), and they range from $1.50 to $3 according to size. It's decent, considering nearly the exact same jars are available at the Home Hardware next door from $2.99 to $4.99:

I probably spent about $40 on jars. Similar to the spice rack, I have leftovers of things like flour and sugar, and once I finish off the bags, I intend to buy bulk. If you fancy, you can pull out a label maker and make it all official, but I didn't feel like marking up my nice clean glass jars (or buying a label maker), so the only labelling I did was an "S" on the bottom of the baking soda jar (completely indistinguishable from the baking powder until you wonder why your cake is a pancake).

It's simple, but if you have the room, just simply putting everything into jars makes everything look better. I even got some extras to store some of the pasta that keeps jumping out of the cupboard, amongst other things. How DO you store jumbo shells anyway?

The best side effect is that I had an extra shelf divider when I was done. No more will I knock over a stack of pots when I need to boil pierogies!

Thing of beauty. With this, my kitchen organization is complete.

... of course none of this will matter in a month. After a couple beers I've finally mustered the courage to take an apartment I looked at today and the kitchen is a storage NIGHTMARE. But I like a challenge. The tiny apartment saga will definitely be able to go on, that's for sure.

A Tiny Hiatus & End of an Era

This one's a bit sad and personal, but considering how much I've loved doing this blog so far, I feel like I should address what would otherwise be the elephant in the room for the entries to come.

The best way to save space in a tiny apartment for two? Make it a tiny apartment for one.

I will sadly no longer be sharing this apartment, and will be transitioning to a new phase of my life in the coming months. I won't be able to stay here for too much longer and will be on the lookout for a new hole-in-the-wall to call my home. Entries will still be posted, items will still be replaced, cupboards will still be organized, but they will surely be optimized so that they will apply in whatever new place I find on my own. They will be less frequent, to accommodate any foreseeable existential crises, but I will be doing my best to keep up in the meantime. I just hope that I will still be able to maintain this hobby because it has been really enjoyable reading everyone's tiny living stories and tips of their own. Keep 'em coming.

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for your understanding.