Today, we're working with our sponsor Mrs. Meyer’s through a Socialstars™ program to share our DIY kitchen hub solution!
The kitchen is the hub. The one place in the home everyone can come together and be – for the most part – in the moment. From the ancient dirt-floored and open fire pit kitchens of old to the stainless steel and subway tile backsplash-adorned kitchens of today, everyone is drawn to this hallowed space. And for good reason.
A well-designed house sets its kitchen up front. With a good view of everything outside the face of the home. Our natural instinct is to have shelter but still be in the know of what is going on around us. The kitchen is also typically the central location in the home as it serves as the axis of all activity. We wake up, and aside from some unstoppable force, we head to the kitchen to begin our day. We come home and finish our day in the kitchen before we drag ourselves off to bed. Most importantly, the kitchen is where we keep the chocolate cake. So, you know…the kitchen's a big deal.
With so much activity, the kitchen is also one of the most scrutinized areas of the home. It’s where all the magic happens, am I right? Nowhere else in the home has nearly as much in the way of functional requirements. You constantly need supplies, knives, forks, plates, food, cooking instruments, mixing devices, and on and on. And through all this, you wind up with dishes; the bane of all kitchen existence!
Now, my parents always told my brother and I that they only had us to do the chores. Oh, the funny things old people say to make no one laugh. All kidding aside, the dishes had to be done. In our home, we keep the Mrs. Meyer’s dish soap just behind the back lip of the sink. This, of course, was never a problem until I remade the kitchen counter and topped it with a nice surface of walnut. That wood ain't cheap! With every wet-handed grab of the bottle, a small pool of dish water would form on the dark, hard wood’s surface. Despite the necessity to do these cursed dishes, a small screaming voice in the back of my mind sounded off with the words of someone else's crazy cup-ring-phobic mother, “Put it on a coaster!”
Well, that just isn’t practical. Chelsea, being the chic and handy person that she is, came up with a better way to store and display our Mrs. Meyer’s dish soap. “I need a metal sheet, strong magnets and some super glue,” she asserted. Knowing I married a crazy woman, I mentally shrugged and went back to checking my social streams. The next thing I knew, the busy whirring of my drill beckoned my attention from the kitchen.
There it was. Laid out like a wall-mounted hipster table lay. Chelsea’s happy little measuring cups and her basil-scented dish soap.
The kitchen, immortal sanctuary of gathering that it is, will be there long after I’m gone. But as long as Chelsea and I are here, ours will be kept nice and neat with the soft scent of basil emanating from my kitchen sink. We haven't always agreed on home care products, but this one is the perfectly-happy meeting of effectiveness and plant-derived ingredients, while managing to smell like something that actually belongs in a kitchen instead of in a perfume factory.
With our bottle of Mrs. Meyer’s dish soap now artistically adorning our wall, our hub is that much more complete.