5 "must-have" kitchen/bath organization items

Serenity now! Even if you didn't grow up watching Seinfeld (like I did) I think you can appreciate my cry for help. The apartment walls are closing in on me!!

First, I would like to make the disclaimer: the size of the apartment is fine, it's two bedroom, one bath with a big enough room for our king size bed, no complaints there. It doesn't bother me that our roommate is an 8 foot long window. Even the one bathroom is something we can live with (we have found that making your trips to the bathroom sound really pretentious, i.e. "Forward all my calls to my office, I'm going to be awhile" or "I'll be in the library if anyone needs me," helps make you feel less dumb about the fact that your significant other knows entirely to much about your personal hygiene habits. Mystery and intrigue my butt, two working people who share almost the same sets of hours and spend a large portion of their free time together have to joke in order to survive one bathroom).

Back to business ... What bothers me about this apartment is the total lack of storage and workability. Everyone always talks about Small Space, Big Style. Well I'd like to make this post about Small Space, Big Function.

So I started doing research about the types of organization equipment that is out there for kitchens and bathrooms (my two biggest problem areas) and found some really cool options. The more I kept typing ideas into google to see what existed the more I kept getting linked back to the same store. It appears that this post will showcase all Rockler products.

Maybe you can use some of these in your life, if you do (or already are) I'd love to hear about how they work. While my dream would be to put all these into our home in the end it will come down to budget so it would be great to have feedback on what is and isn't worth it.

The Double Waste Containers: Tucking away your trash can is clutch. Ours currently hangs on the edge of the drawer (on one of those hooks that fits over the edge, classy, I know). I like the idea of this one because it has space for two, which you could use for recycling. At $92.99 that is way worth it. Or if you're family is really into recycling you can get the Tri-cycler but it's a bit pricier at $305.99. I'm not sure if that pans out as well with all the other recycling options out there.

The Filler Pull-Out Pantry: I'm a huge fan of a nice pull out pantry. Mostly because I think not every kitchen has the floor space to devote to a true pantry. These take advantage of the decorative fillers that you see in a lot of the high-end cabinets these days. At $276.99 that seems reasonable but I can't quite figure out how the darn things actually work so I'm not exactly sure. Rockler also has other options for pantry-pull out which we may end up going with, I just think there filler pull outs are pretty cool.

This EZ Slide N Store "Stuff" Manager: This one makes sense, however, I'm going to take it one step further. In the bathroom I'm going to wire behind my vanity, so that when I pull out the "stuff" manager the hair dryer is already plugged in. Or a tray with my hot-rollers on it, already plugged in, I just have to turn them on. The less times you have to touch things the better.

This Filler Pull-Out has this cool insert you can use to put your keys and such. They have a message board option or you can just use the hooks ... it's really just like a stainless steel peg board.

This Heavy Duty Mixer Lift is awesome. I would use it not just for my mixer but also for my blender, my toaster, shoot, why not my coffee maker? I hate having things on the counter so this is ideal. At $99.99 it's a bit of a splurge but maybe well worth it. I wonder if I would have to learn to bake (correctly) for Mr. Nick to buy it for me? 

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