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Friday, October 4, 2013

How to Set Up a Toaster Station

Organized Kitchen | toast station on a vintage tray | personallyandrea.com
So I’m sure all of you have figured out a fix for this long ago…toast crumbs on the kitchen counter, toaster in the way of making dinner, toaster inaccessible during the morning rush.  That’s been my kitchen…for a long time.  But now, as part of my mini kitchen improvement, I decided to fix it.  And it was actually easy.

toaster tidy up_12
Who knew?  A tray, a jar, move the bread, done.

Organized Kitchen | toast station on a vintage tray, chalkboard art, coffee accessories in a basket | personallyandrea.com
And now we have this cute little toast-making station that’s away from the rest of the kitchen busy-ness.  It stays in the same place.  All The Time.  It’s easy to  keep clean.  Did I mention it was cute?  Well, I helped it out a little bit with the cuteness because I saw this adorable sign on Pinterest.  I don’t really do signs, but I do chalkboards and I just copied the idea.

Chalkboard art in a distressed frame | Give us this day | personallyandrea.com
Distressed chalkboard frame | personallyandrea.com
I’m loving me a little upcycled distressed frame chalkboard.  They really work for me…when I’m feeling creative it’s a blank slate.  When I make a mistake, I can erase it and start over.  When I’m fickle and change my mind, guess what?  Erase it and start over.

But back to the toaster.  So I had rediscovered this vintage silver tray.  (A lot of stuff has seen the light of day since we’ve been renovating the basement, by the way.)  And I love it and have used it in a few places, but now it’s found it’s home.  Set it on the sideboard and moved the toaster there.  Already brilliant. 

Vintage silver tray patina | personallyandrea.com
Set out the butter in a butter dish and moved the butter knives there too.  There’s a key concept of organizing right?  Putting stuff together that gets used together.

Organized Kitchen | toast station on a vintage tray, chalkboard art | personallyandrea.com
Then remember that I had bought a set of three nesting seagrass baskets?  The first one was used for the coffee station?  Well here’s the largest of the three holding the bread right underneath the toaster tray.  I made the same kind of fake, I mean faux, chalkboard tag with black cardstock,  white paint marker and twine.  In case anyone couldn’t figure out it was bread in there.

Toaster Tidy-Up | chalkboard tag on a basket for bread storage | personallyandrea.com
Now the bread, toaster, butter and knives all live together.  The cream cheese and the peanut butter and jam live right next door in the fridge.  I have had requests for the Nutella to live on the tray as well.  Hmmm, well, maybe.  If they would just package it in a prettier jar.

Toaster Tidy-Up | Nutella on toast | personallyandrea.com
So if your toaster situation is causing you stress, this is something you can do.  Any style tray that’s large enough to hold your toaster plus your extra toasting stuff would be fabulous.  It has made the kitchen ridiculously more efficient, and so much easier to keep tidy.  Well worth your time, I promise you.

Toaster Tidy-Up | toaster, mason jar for knives, butter dish on a vintage tray| personallyandrea.com
Daisies | personallyandrea.com
Can you name this movie?

I love daisies, they’re so friendly.  Don’t you think daisies are the friendliest flower?