Condo: Kitchen!

I know I know....I have been a bad blogger.

A REALLY bad blogger.

But, I have some 'after' condo pics, so can we kiss and make up?

Today, let's discuss the kitchen.

AKA...one of my favorite parts of the condo.

I really wanted a renovated kitchen.

You know for all that cooking I do...

But..my theory was that after I bought a house, I would need to pinch pennies...so if I was going to be stuck inside cooking, it would have to be in a pretty kitchen ;)

The open spacing, stainless appliances and glass cabinets pretty much had me at 'hello!'

Here is the kitchen before I moved anything in:

And here it is now!

(Sorry about the iPhone pics...I can't locate the charger to my actual camera and the battery is dead)......

As you can see, I went with a cobalt and bright yellow theme...I didn't want to live in a totally white house. All of my blue and yellow pieces are from Homegoods except for the Ikat Sink Rug, which is Home Depot and the Pepper Mill which is Anthropologie.

Clearly, I don't have enough wine (and desperately need a wine rack/bar cart....)

 I love this clock I got at Homegoods ages ago, but the hands get stuck and it never reads the right time. Eventually, I will probably need to replace it, but for now I just love it.

And here the oven it changed up with my blue/white chevron dish towels. Dish towels are a great way to spice things up in the kitchen without a major dent into the wallet.

So...I know that looks all pretty and what not...but behind those cabinets...life in the kitchen is a HOT MESS. I have a bunch of odd-sized cabinets and short drawers. The cabinets where I store my food are very long and narrow, and I have no clue what is behind my 2 jars of salsa (no joke), and the cabinets that go up to the ceiling are literally almost 2 feet taller than I am, so I need to maximize the bottom shelves as much as I can. (Since I won't be growing anytime soon)

It's a GREAT space, it just needs my mom's organization skills (look people she's an engineer, this is her thing....), a couple hours of Pinterest inspiration and an extensive trip to the Container Store and Bed Bath and Beyond to get this done.

As much as I love the fun and creative Pinterest spice rack ideas with baby food jars and custom labels, when you are only dealing with 819 square feet...function beats fashion when we are talking BEHIND the cabinets. I am not totally ruling it out, but I don't think it's likely. 

I am thinking a lazy susan for the spices, tiered racks for all the oils, cans,etc that are in the cabinets and a serious helping of these pull-out shelf baskets for where I store my dry goods. I have great cabinet space there...but it goes back almost a whole foot so I need some help getting to the back of the shelf! 

I also really want to add some color...especially behind those gorgeous glass paneled doors! I am thinking these cobalt tumblers and some sort of patterned blue plates that ARE NOT FIESTA.

No offense to you fiesta lovers, but I am not a fiesta gal. 

Top it off with some yellow serving pieces as accents, and I think the kitchen will be good to go.

What do you think? I would LOVE any advice on tricky cabinet organization.