We’ve been living in our house for about 5 months now and some rooms look quite lived in and established while others of course are still a bit bare and undecided. The kitchen is probably the area we’ve most claimed as our own so I thought I’d give you a little photo tour of our kitchen.

Above is a picture of the kitchen from little BB’s perspective.

As far as she’s concerned, that fridge and those magnets are the only important things going on in here, I’m sure.

Here’s the kitchen from my POV. A nice layout with lots of counter space and a perfect peek into our dining area where BB is just finishing her lunch (we’re still in jammies doing the sick kid thing).

So that’s the general feel of the kitchen from BB’s level and mine, but what about the details? The little things that make this kitchen feel like home?

This is where my morning starts, our little Mr Coffee Espresso maker. It was cheap but it’s just the right size and gets the job done. We also have a stove top espresso maker for when we want a little treat – Mr Coffee makes a good cup of joe, but our stove top espresso maker sometimes just can’t be beat. But M-F it’s all about Mr Coffee.

And this is the coffee we put inside the Mr Coffee Espresso Maker. It’s actually one of the more affordable espressos, you’ll find it in the Ethnic Foods area of your grocery store most likely. And it’s delicious. I highly recommend it (If my recommendation isn’t enough, I saw it in The Pioneer Woman’s kitchen on a blog post once – and frankly if the PW likes it, everyone should).

Not a coffee drinker? I can also get you a cup of tea if you’d prefer. We have a massive selection but this Harney & Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice is by far my favorite. Don’t worry, I buy it in bulk on Amazon. Then I take the tea bags out of the little cardboard package it comes in and put them in the pretty tin I got at the grocery store.

It took us awhile to figure out what kind of pots and pans we like to cook on, but we quickly discovered our love for cast iron. Unfortunately, being a wimpy little Jen, our first skillet was really heavy and I didn’t really like cooking with it due to the heavy factor. So when we stumbled upon this little beauty at our local Targ-mart (I can’t remember which anymore) for an absurdly cheap sale price (like $4 or something) we could not resist and I’m so glad we got it because it’s much lighter and perfect for cooking up eggs, crepes, pancakes, etc.

Want an apple with that? I insisted recently on picking up a big bowl to store fresh fruit in. I figured having it out on the counter would encourage us to eat the good stuff more often. It’s mostly true.

I’m guessing you noticed this pretty little thing in my second picture. That’s the newest member of our team of kitchen workhorses – so new that I have yet to actually bake anything with it! I’ve been stalking this baby on Amazon for over a year now and recently saw it selling for a price way too good to pass up. The picture is a bit dark, but this is the copper color – it’s the KitchenAid Professional 600 series and yup, just checked and the price totally went back up already.

So what should I make with Big Beautiful first? Hubby insists it be chocolate chip cookies but I’m kind of distracted by the mile long list of recipes that I’ve been meaning to try – and happily taking suggestions! So AFTER the cookies for hubby, what recipe do you think I should test out?

Moving on with our tour, this is the Fresh and Clean station where all the dish washing and drying happens. We finally got some curtains hanging up over our window and I’ve got a few little pretty things on the window sill making it feel pretty & homey. Anything to make doing the dishes 18 times a day feel less mundane.

It also helps to put the Tiny Ones to work as early as possible. Luckily, my kids are still young and naive enough to think helping mom clean is FUN. ::insert evil laughter here::

Cause yeah, I’ll take all the help I can get. Well, I guess that pretty much concludes our tour. There’s more I could show you, but that would require more cleaning – and as you can see, I’ve already got dishes to do.