Minimalist Kitchen Tour: Keeping it Simple in the Kitchen

Without further ado, here is a tour of our minimalist kitchen! You can see the general layout of our kitchen in the picture above. I’ll get into the details of each area in our minimalist kitchen below!

Sink side of our minimalist kitchen

Starting with the sink side of the kitchen, I’ll show you the upper cabinets first, from left to right. Then the lower cabinets and drawers, also from left to right.

Upper cabinets

On the left are our everyday dishes. We have a set of 8 dishes for our family of 4. Along with 3 serving plates I used frequently for everyday meals and six pasta bowls. I also keep my liquid measuring cups in this cupboard.

Above the sink, I keep my frequently used kitchen cleaning products and dishwasher detergent. We’ve kept our cleaning products up high for safety reasons since our kids were born.

In this cupboard, I also keep my glass baking dishes. Along with casserole dishes and a few small glass food storage containers. I often use the casserole dishes as serving dishes as well.

The cupboard to the right of the sink holds our drinking glasses. The top shelf holds my cheese grater (the plastic container it attaches to is holding cheese in the fridge), apple slicer and citrus juicer.

Small drawers on the left

Moving on to the drawers on the left. The top drawer holds our silverware in a wooden organizer. Along with a vegetable peeler, vegetable brush and bottle opener in the back. My serving utensils are kept in the front.

The next drawer holds our knives using a wooden in-drawer knife block and a smaller plastic knife holder. I only use a very small selection of these knives, but my husband uses a wide variety of them.

The third drawer holds the plastic utensils my kids love. Along with a selection of reusable plastic and metal straws.

The bottom drawer holds our plastic food storage containers. I keep them organized in stacks by size with the lids grouped by size as well.

Under the sink

The drawer on the left holds our garbage bags. The larger drawer under it is our pull-out garbage can.

Under the sink, we keep a variety of items. There are dish soap, paper towels, a few plastic shopping bags, extra sponges, gloves, a drying mat, fire extinguisher and basket for recycling items. I use an over the cabinet rack to hold a tea towel on the front of the cupboard and a dishcloth and face cloth for the kids on the inside.

Fridge and freezer area

To the left of the sink area, we have a fridge and a separate freezer. The previous owners renovated and designed the kitchen, and having a full-size, upright freezer right in the kitchen is one of my favourite parts of this kitchen. It’s so convenient to have the freezer right in the kitchen!

The cupboards above the fridge and freezer hold some less frequently used items. On the left is serving platters and bowls.

On the right, I keep a few extra canisters that I’m not currently using. As I mentioned here, I like to decant many of our pantry items into smaller, airtight containers.

I also keep our french press, two salad dressing containers, our blender and food processor in this cupboard. After a scary incident where the blender blade fell out of the blender onto my son, I keep these appliances up high and out of reach of little hands!

The kitchen island

The kitchen island has 2 large cupboards and 2 drawers.

The left drawer holds tea towels, dishcloths and cloths to wipe my kids’ hands and faces after eating. I keep them separated by color: green for dishes and all the other colors for hands and faces! I use one dishcloth and one face cloth each day, then add them to the laundry.

The drawer on the right holds all my cooking and baking utensils. I have pared down our collection of cooking utensils, only keeping what we use on a regular basis. Each of these items is used often in our kitchen.

The island cupboards hold large plastic containers I primarily use to freeze baking in on the left. Below that are a few juice jugs and a water jug. Along with a serving tray.

The cupboard on the right holds my remaining small appliances. These include a stand mixer, slow cooker, toaster (on a wonderful crumb tray built by my grandpa) and a hand mixer.

My husband enjoys baking occasionally and prefers a hand mixer over the stand mixer. I’m happy to compromise and keep an extra small appliance if it means I get to eat the tasty treats he bakes!

Stove side of our minimalist kitchen

Again, I’ll show you the cupboards and drawers going left to right, starting with the top cupboards. The pantry is on the right, and we’ll get to that next!

Upper cabinets

Starting on the left in the upper cupboards we keep our mugs. Pretty mugs make me happy, so this is one area in our kitchen I am not particularly minimal. I love using and offering guests a pretty mug, so I keep the ones I love. Remember, keep what you use regularly and/or love, however that looks for you!

Above the microwave, I have 4 travel mugs and 4 water bottles.

Next to the microwave is our spice cupboard. The top shelf holds overflow spices on the left that don’t fit in my spice containers. On the right, I have cake decorating supplies. Sprinkles, food colouring…basically anything I don’t want my kids to get their hands on!

The bottom 2 shelves hold my spices and a few cooking supplies. Because we have a minimalist kitchen, I was able to devote a large cupboard to spices. This allows me to easily access the items without having to do much to keep them organized. Less stuff means you have more space for what you choose to keep!

The cupboards on the far left of this side of the kitchen are at an angle. We keep our family’s vitamins in the top cupboard. And we use the bottom angled cupboard for our tea collection, kettle and extra coffee pods. Have I mentioned that we love tea at our house? ?

Lower cabinets and drawers

In the drawer next to the stove we keep our oven mitts and aprons (one for me, and one for each kid). The drawer under the stove holds our 3 frying pans, along with a broiler pan.

Beside the stove, our baking pans and cutting boards are stored vertically with dividers attached to the bottom of the cupboard.

To the right of the stove, we keep placemats in one drawer. And plastic baggies, tin foil, wax paper and plastic wrap in the other drawer.

Below that we have 2 large, deep drawers. The top one holds our mixing bowls – one metal set, one glass set and one plastic set. As well as our colanders. The large metal one fits into the middle section of the sink and will stay with the house if we ever move.

The bottom drawer holds our pots. We’ve found these 5 pots are the perfect number and sizes for our family.

The pantry

Our kitchen has a wall pantry. It’s not overly large, but it has pull-out drawers that make efficient use of the space.

Top pantry cupboard

The top of the pantry holds crackers and cereal on the top shelf. And the bottom shelf holds the kids’ treat basket on the left. And our selection of oils, vinegar, syrup and honey on the right.

Pull out pantry drawers

The bottom section of the pantry has deep pullout drawers. The drawers make it easy to access everything in the pantry and keep it organized.

The top pull-out drawer holds canned goods on a riser to make it easy to see what we have. We also keep iced tea mix, lemonade mix, hot chocolate mix and coffee syrup here.

The next drawer holds our dry goods like pasta and rice. I like decanting most items to get rid of the bulky packaging and help keep the food stay fresher. Baskets also help me keep food items organized in the pantry.

The third drawer holds all of the snack items for the kids. We use these when packing school lunches, and for snacking. I keep a selection of items that the kids are free to choose from when it’s snack time.

The bottom pantry drawer holds all our baking supplies. Again, I use canisters and baskets to keep things fresh and organized.

Built in wall unit in the dining area

The previous owners installed a built-in wall unit of sorts in the dining area of the kitchen. The cupboards and drawers are all only 12″ deep. The cupboards are functional at that depth, but the drawers are awkward and hard to use because they only pull out about 6″.

While this wall unit isn’t my favourite part of the kitchen, we aren’t wanting to do any renovations at this time, so we’re working with it!

Here’s another shot of the wall until to show you the configuration better.

Wall unit cupboards

In the upper, glass front cabinets, we store a few decorative items we love and hold special meaning to us. Many of these items are also things we use regularly, like my grandma’s teapot and a couple of serving dishes. We also keep our china dishes and wine glasses in this cabinet that we love to use when entertaining.

The basket in the middle holds the kids’ headphones and a few random things I like to keep out of their reach, like super glue!

The cabinet on the left is what I call my “office”. You can read more about that cupboard and how I use it here.

The middle section holds a basket where we store and charge our phones and iPads. This is also where we keep our house phone. We’re old school and still like having a landline at home!

On the left, we have our favourite cookbooks, my recipe box and my camera in a camera bag.

The cupboard on the bottom holds all our plastic cups and dishes for the kids. As well as all the lunch packing materials for the kids. They also keep their lunch bags in this cupboard, but both kids were at school when I took these photos.

Wall unit drawers

The drawers on the left are included in my “office”. You can read more details about them here. The bottom drawer holds a tablecloth and set of napkin rings the kids love using for “fancy” dinners.

The drawers on the left hold a random assortment of things. The top drawer holds a selection of tools we use often and like to keep handy. As well as glass cleaning cloths and spray.

The middle drawer holds some of the messier crafts supplies my kids are only allowed to use in the kitchen. Currently, they have paint, glitter glue and slime.

The bottom drawer holds the supplies we use to work on school work with my daughter.

Coffee and tea nook

On the other side of the dining area, we have a coffee and tea nook. The previous owners used this space for a TV, but a TV was the last thing I wanted in our kitchen. We try to prioritize conversation and connection during family meal times, and a TV would be too much of a distraction.

This little nook is one of my favourite features of our minimalist kitchen. I built and customized the whole thing and I love the results. Plus, using power tools is always fun!

I added a wooden countertop and shelf to coordinate with our table and cabinets, hand-painted and built the sign, and installed new light fixtures to suit our style better.

We use this nook to hold our Keurig machine, extra pods in the ceramic canister, sugar and spoons on the top shelf (in my grandma’s cream and sugar dishes). And a few plants as decorative touches.

Basement pantry

In addition to the kitchen cupboards and drawers, we also have a storage closet in the basement that we use for additional kitchen storage.

This is where we keep any extra food items we bought in bulk or larger quantities, as well as bulky snack items like chips. I also keep a few larger items I use less frequently, usually only when we are hosting a large group of people. For example, I have a large slow cooker, large stock pot and a roasting pan.

We also keep our dog food, treats and grooming supplies in this closet.

The plastic bin on the floor holds our bottles and cans for recycling.

And just to clarify that I’m not a minimalist when it comes to all aspects of my life….here is my wall of chai tea concentrate! ?

I love this chai tea and this is one of the few things I treat myself to regularly. I buy it at Costco, and because we don’t live anywhere near a Costco, I stock up 2 or 3 times a year. This picture was taken a week after my latest stock up. Definitely not a minimalist when it comes to my chai!