Officials can vote to tax large kitchens

If you’ve been following the news in Philadelphia, you probably know that the mayor has proposed a tax on sweet soda and sugary drinks. As in New York City a few years ago, when the Board of Health tried to ban large soda and popcorn servings, he and his cohorts are convinced this will spell the end of obesity. I am in favor of ending the girth, but does anyone think this will actually work? Will a few extra pennies (yes, we still use them) will keep audiences away from your candy? The Associated Press says this legislation has failed in more than thirty cities and states so far, so what’s the problem? The only reason I go to the movies is to eat popcorn loaded with a wonderfully disgusting artificial butter-like substance and then have it with a sweet drink.

If the authorities can tax candy, what’s next in your bag of tricks to reduce the girth of people with size problems? I can only imagine that the appropriate committee will decide that large refrigerators must be illegal because they can be used to store large amounts of sugary drinks. Next, logically, the ban on large pantry cabinets would follow, because you could put large boxes of sugary cereal in them. Clearly, large kitchens themselves would be on the agenda, because if you only have a small kitchen, you would encourage people to be smaller so they have more room to move.

Of course, this is all nonsense. People should be allowed to buy food in whatever quantities they want, and certainly should be allowed to have kitchens of any size, without being subject to additional taxes. However, if you don’t have a large kitchen, you can make your little one look and feel bigger by following a couple of design tricks. And the government will never know!

If you work with a small space, the first impulse is to use wall cabinets that extend to the ceiling. While this will add an additional shelf in each cabinet, it will also close in the room, making it appear smaller. If you have 96 “ceilings, stick with the standard 30” or 36 “wall cabinets, but request an additional shelf for each. In most kitchens, the cabinets are not used to their full potential due to lack of shelves An additional shelf often The shelf in a standard height cabinet can increase its usable capacity by approximately 20% and by leaving a bit of open space at the top of the cabinets, it gives a “more airy” look. You can store some decorative kitchen utensils there.

Consider adding open shelves between some of the wall cabinets. Although this won’t actually increase your storage capacity, this technique will help make the kitchen appear larger.

Keep all cabinets level with each other rather than moving them up and down. By keeping cabinets level, including shelving open, and leaving the ceiling open, you draw attention horizontally rather than vertically, making the space appear larger.

The best way to maximize storage space in kitchens of any size is with accessories like lazy-susans, drop-down trays and tilting drawers. Corners are almost impossible to avoid in some kitchen designs and if you have a corner, the best way to deal with it is to install lazy-susans in corner cabinets. Although they are not 100% efficient (you lose some space on the sides), it makes everything much easier to reach. And you can also add an extra shelf to a lazy-Susan or adjust the bottom shelf several inches to allow you to use the base of the cabinet as an additional shelf. Avoid blind corner cabinets at all costs! Those are those horrible cabinets, which are stuck in the corners to fill the space. If there is no way to avoid having a blind corner base unit, insist on ½ moon shelves, which make the space more accessible.

Pull-out trays allow you to remove all items in a base cabinet so they are easily accessible without searching for something you lost several years ago. It’s also a lot easier on your back because you don’t have to bend down as much to retrieve pots and pans.

If you currently have a small kitchen, or the government regulates that you can’t afford a large one, by tampering with a few design elements and maximizing internal space, your undersized kitchen may feel and act much larger than you ever thought possible. And you can hide the Frosted Flakes in your bedroom.