PEEK with Tamara & a GIVEAWAY!

Lots of my followers out there know this lady. 


Tamara.

And if you know Tamara and haven't made the trip to visit her new house...you darn well know you want to see inside of it. And if you don't know her....you're still gonna love this!!!  Tamara normally blogs over here.  And she is a Norwex consultant.  And we all know how much I LOVE Norwex.  That's a big hint to the giveaway and the end of this PEEK!


Take 'er away Tamara!!!


This is my dream kitchen come true. I spent months designing the kitchen. It was so fun! Then we took it to a local kitchen place in Yarmouth, and the designer fine tuned it.


I'll start on one end and move around clockwise.

This is a big bank of cupboards.They are only 12" deep, which may not sound very deep, but it's perfect and doesn't take up much floorspace. I didn't know what to do with this wall when I was designing it. Make it an eating nook? more counter space? But an interior designer I consulted came up with this idea. I love it! On the left I store breakfast stuff, napkins, plastic cutlery, and in the bottom, snack foods.


To the right of the "desk" I store kid's craft supplies, magazines, paperwork, etc. and in the bottom it's pasta city.


Within this bank of cupboards, I incorporated a workspace, where I could sit down, meal plan, make lists, etc. As you can tell by the mess, and it's usually quite similar to this most days, not a whole lot of work gets done here. It's turned into a dumping ground for pretty much everything. I do have plans to change that, but after a year and a half, I still haven't followed through. Ideas anyone?


In the bottom corner, I store all my Tupperware and other plastic containers. I really like this cupboard. It makes me happy to see it all neat and tidy. Up above, sorry, no pic, I store cooking ingredients like spices and oils, vinegar, and also, boxed stuff like Hamburger Helper, etc.


In this part, I store all my baking ingredients, and some baking pans. The door to the right goes into the formal diningroom. And yes, I mean formal. The kids have not eaten in here since we got our fancy diningroom set, this past summer. I know, I'm a mean mom.


On the side of my oven(that's next) I hung my super cool calendar. and chore charts for Avery and Jacob.(Please don't ask how's that going) This calendar rocks. I got it at Costco. There's a ton of room to write things in, and on the back page, I have all of our health card numbers written down, as well as family phone numbers, and othere miscellaneous info.



This my super awesome oven combo.



The top is a convection microwave, and then a convection oven with a ton of settings, and at the bottom is a warming drawer. I really wanted double ovens, but Brian just didn't see the need for that, so I figured the convection microwave was a good compromise, although I haven't even used the convection part of it yet, but I have the option. Guess he was right. Check out the interior, (sorry it's a bit dirty) I love, love, love the telescopic rack! Makes getting stuff out, much less hazardous.


Right next to the oven, there is divided pan storage, for flat pans. Cookie sheets and my stoneware.



Next we have the garbage. One thing I was adament about, was having different bins for recycling. So, the kitchen guy showed me this little gem. The left bin is for garbage, the one in the back has a blue bag in it for recyclables, and on the right is for paper. The only stinky thing is (no pun intended) that the bins are smaller than my blue bag, so when the bin is full, the bag is only half full. Same with garbage, so I switched to smaller garbage bags, which makes sense to empty it more often.


I recently reorganized this drawer. It's much more efficient now. A place for evrything. The original cutlery tray was repurposed in another drawer.


I got this idea from my friend Kelly. I did have all the kids dishes beneath the baking ingredients, but it was inconvenient, because I have cupboard locks on all my bottom doors, the younger kids needed me to get them a cup, or a bowl. So now, they can get it themselves, and this drawer doesn't have a lock on it.


When people come to our house for the first time, sometimes I play "where's the dishwasher?"
90% of the time, they have no idea. Isn't it fun? Another thing I was adament about in this kitchen was having paneled appliances where possible. I love the look!


I had a rollout tray installed in here, and put my two big flour and rice containers on it. No more straining to get them out.


Remember the original cutlery insert ? Here it is. Holding perfectly plastic baggies, saran wrap, and tin foil. Well, the tin foil doesn't fit that well, but I can close the drawer, so that's all that matters, right?




Here's the jackpot folks. Love, love, love this appliance from the moment I laid eyes on it. It's a Northland, 36" wide all fridge and 36" wide all freezer, side by side. Does it get any better than this? I think not.





I really wanted an upright freezer, instead of a chest freezer. No more bending over and digging around for what you need. It's all right there.(Thank goodness I just cleaned out and reorganized this baby 2 weeks ago)


Here's a PEEK inside the fridge.



So next to the superfridge is a hallway, and then there's my pantry. I got the idea of hanging a dollarstore shoe holder on the inside of a door from a "Real Simple" magazine. I think it's genius. It doubles a my "medicine cabinet". It's high enough that little kids can't reach it, yet oh so convenient. Inside on one wall, I hung mops and brooms and recycling bags for boxboard and refundable bottles. On the "ceiling", the slanted part under the stairs, is my Ikea plastic bag holder. I enjoy stocking up on these babies (on the rare chance I get to go to Ikea) to give as part of a shower or wedding gift. These things rock!

And then on the other wall is had my builder build slightly slanted shelves for canned goods. I've been waiting years to use that idea!

In the middle of the kitchen is an island. It's multipurpose. My cooktop is here, and we have the four counter height chairs for the kids. This is where they eat every meal. There are six of us, so Brian usually sits at the desk to eat, and I usually sit in the counter. Yes, that's right. I sit on the counter to eat my supper. Guess we should have made the island bigger, but that would mean making the whole kitchen bigger, but it was too late by the time we realized. The house was already built. The chairs are quite wide, so maybe when we have to replace them, we'll get narrower ones.


I planned two big pot drawers to store all pots and pans, colander, cutting boards, broiler tray, and my Ikea cheese graters, right under the cooktop. Pretty ingenious, I thought. And tilt out trays to hold little stuff.


Well, that's my kitchen in a nutshell. (A really big nutshell) Hope you enjoyed. Kristi's a genius blogger. I think she deserves an award for her blog. I had a lot fun doing this.


Thanks friend for letting us inside your kitchen!  I've been dying to see it!!!  And you're too sweet "genius blogger" (blush).


Now for the giveaway!!!


Tamara as I said before is a Norwex consultant.  In a nutshell...

"Norwex is a dynamic, expanding worldwide organization. In 1994 our Norwegian company set out to create a very unique, environmentally friendly concept of Clean without Chemicals."  


I personally love the products.  Especially the ones that Tamara is offering for one winner today.

What are those one may ask??  Well, these puppies replace all of your cleaning chemicals and paper towels.  Yes I just said that.  You can use these to scrub your house top to bottom, inside and backwards, bathroom and kitchen......and clean up all the bacteria.  Just by adding water.  Norwex has a little secret ingredient.  Well it's not a secret.  But each fibre of this micro-fibre cloth is laced with silver.  When silver and water combine it makes it anti-bacterial.  Go ahead.  Google it.  Oh and they are all washable and last years and years!  Go GREEN team baby!!!!!


She's also giving away this little goodie!

This is such an amazing cloth.  It's got the BEST scrubbing action for all of your dishes and even your pots and pans and does not scratch!  I actually bought 6 more of these recently because I never wanted to be without one while I washed the other one.


AND if we get more then 25 comments she'll give a second winner THIS:


This is a dusting mitt and is so awesome and washable so you're not wasting!


So here's how to enter!


Show Tamara you loves her kitchen and leave a comment!  One per person  UNLESS...


1-entry for following this blog


1-entry for following me on twitter


1-entry for a "title name" of the family photo on Tamara's blog. 


It's super cute that photo!


And go and read up on the benefit's that Norwex has on your family, your budget and your earth.  You'll fall in love!


Thanks again Tamara!!!  We loves LOVES it!!!!