Plates, bowls, cups, serving platters – they fill our kitchen cabinets and embellish our tabletops. When it comes to quantity, though, it would be no surprise if your “cup runneth over” in your kitchen space. You can put some of those lesser-used pieces to good use in new ways to save cabinet space and get the full scoop out of your dishes.
Use tea cups or small bowls, sometimes called “finger bowls,” as drawer dividers. They can hold many things from rings and earrings to ponytail holders, cotton squares, and eye shadows neatly separated in a bathroom drawer. Place a pasta serving bowl on your back entryway or foyer table to hold those everyday essentials that seem to scatter, such as keys, sunglasses, loose change, and the day’s mail. Use a collection of attractive juice glasses on the bathroom counter to hold cotton swabs, toothbrushes, and cotton balls.
Keep office supplies sorted and orderly around the home office desk by using soup bowls or good-looking mugs to hold pens, pencils, paperclips, and rubber bands. Line up individually wrapped snacks on a serving tray for easy access on a low pantry shelf. Think granola bars, popcorn, and cookie and cracker packets. Use mixing or serving bowls for the same purpose, as well as for small kitchen items like measuring spoons and cups and kids’ supplies like arts and crafts components.
Shift your attractive dishes that do not get used for daily meals into decorative pieces. Display them on a buffet or incorporate them into a table centerpiece. Bowls or other dishes displayed in a line on shelving in the den can hold movies, books, and music or note cards, envelopes, and stamps.
Think outside the plastic the next time you have a desire to turn something more formal into something more functional for your everyday spaces. And that’s the dish on dishes.
DesignInMind column; appeared in the Valley Morning Star March 20th.
