Today, we’re going to hang out in my kitchen. I’ve renovated home kitchens and test kitchens, but this is the first space of my own that I’ve been able to design from the ground up. Disclaimer: my kitchen is not as filled out and complete as I’d like, but I really wanted to show you its progress.

After we bought our house, the old kitchen was taken down to the studs, its roof was removed, and we added on a pantry, so it’s the most radically transformed room in the home. I previously showed you how I thought about the layout of the space and how I wanted it to accommodate various use cases (I call them “flows”), such as making lunch, baking, entertaining, and cooking dinner. Once we had the flows in place, I then focused on the kitchen storage.

Some Storage People are into systems that look uniform, or labels that are color-coordinated, or boxes that match. Fine if that’s your thing. Those Storage People do well on Instagram. I come from a sect of less aesthetically-oriented Storage People. We get off on function.

Don’t get me wrong: I want good looking jars for my pantry and attractively arranged tools, but the jars need to be square in order to maximize space and the tools have to live within arm’s reach of the place you’re going to use them. A garbage drawer and stacks of kitchen linens should be close to the sink. Measuring spoons are best located in drawers right beneath your work station.

While I thought all of this through in advance of the build-out, I had our wonderful millworker, Tony (more on him in an upcoming post), hold off on installing any of the in-drawer features like dividers, knife holders, and paper towel rods. I wanted to be living in the house and verifying our actual needs before taking this last step.

A kitchen should feel personal, and layered, but it should also reflect the workshop that it is. When you’re cooking in a well-thought-through kitchen, it should feel as though the space has read your mind. You shouldn’t have to root around for a juicer or a knife, it should lead you intuitively to where they are, within reach.

I’m going to leave it to this drawer-by-drawer video tour (with a few cabinets and a multitasking sink in the mix) to show you the rest: ...