New Kitchen Metal Bars & S Hooks For Pans & Utensils

We're of the philosophy that cooking equipment such as pots and pans, spatulas, tongs, measuring cups etc... should be out and about and visible in the kitchen, and ideally not hidden away in drawers and cupboards. So, we started to look around our tiny little kitchen for where we could possibly put up a bar or some hooks to hang things on.

As it happens, the area right over the stove has a wooden plank, right under the cabinet, perfect for hanging things since it's a lot easier to go into wood than it is to drill into tile.

Oh, and also check out our wooden cart. This is an old piece of furniture we used to have in our old apartment and we were thinking about actually throwing it away since we couldn't see the use of it, as we were planning on building our own cabinet in this spot. But, realizing as we put it there temporarily, we're in desparate need of counterspace. So, this unit goes out further than we had planned building, but the additional counterspace more than makes up for the lack of neatness. So now we're planning on sanding and staining the top, just like our table, and painting the lower parts white to match the cabinets.

Ok, back to the rack. We were thinking of different options for getting a bar up, including using door handles, or building our own from metal rods. However, then we came to think of towel bars - they go on the wall nicely, they are made to hide screws and they look great. So we found a clean and simple towel rod design, picked up two 18 inch units and hung them up on the wooden flap. We also put up S hooks to hang pans and utensils from, and some things can hook directly on to the bar, such as the ladle on the picture.

Also, check out our new under-the-cabinet lights. These are actually battery operated LED lights which you just push in the middle of each light to turn on. We like them because they were cheap, and since they are battery operated they don't require a cord (annoying around the stove), and they don't get hot. Now we're planning on picking up two more units to complete the picture and get some more light. 

Doesn't the towel bar fit right in!

Now we just need to get some more S hooks so we can hang even more stuff up!