A bit a go, Tim made some shelves for the whole in my kitchen cupboards. Gypsy is supervising.

You might wonder… why does she have a hole there?

Because I don’t have a oven/range. The one that was here when I bought the Moby was dead. And I had it removed. We had a perfectly good working large toaster oven, so we started using that. Believe it or not, we haven’t had a “real” oven or rangetop for over a year! And we get by just fine.

I had gotten a hot plate at first, and now we use that as well as the toaster oven to make cookies, pies, breads, roasts, I even cooked a small turkey in there! (I cut it in half from front to back and cooked each half at a time!) It worked fine.

We have a little collection of specialized cooking devices that work great. A nice little electric skillet, a hot presto pot (great for boiling water for anything… FAST), a rice cooker, a crock pot, and a Foreman grill and an outside gas grill. Oh yeah, and a breadmaker and a microwave. So far, we haven’t needed a big stove and I like all the extra space that I’ve gained in a very small kitchen from using the space better.

Tim cut some nice and sturdy shelves and just placed them in there. It worked out just nicely. I plan to make a little curtain to hide everything out of sight. I had gotten a nice piece of countertop in the odd-cut pile at Lowes for like $40 way back when and it’s great. If I really need the space, I can always moved the toaster oven or the breadmaker and we’ve got lots of counter space.

A nice curtain is a winter craft project for me. It will look just fine. I’d really like to some day replace the whole bank of cabinets, but windows are a priority first. Actually, I’ll probably save up and possibly reconfigure the kitchen/dining room space somewhat to really work better, so I think it will be a few years till I save up for that sort of major project!

One of these days I might get a little stove… I actually was looking at apartment sized ovens, that are like 2 burner and a small, but decent sized oven. That might be a good in between solution at some time. Or I just might stick with the toaster oven. Who knows?

One of the nice things about the little appliances… I always find them at garage sales and really don’t spend much money on them. $5 – $10 seems to be the top price! So far, nothing has quit on me, but I figure if it does… I’ll only be out a few bucks and I can take a look for another one. With major appliances, they just seem to be super expensive these days! When I priced a new stove, even the most basic was easily $300. And I started to look for used, and it was better, but still, then I had to make sure it fit and had to go and get it and move the thing…. the toaster oven was a whopping $45 brand new! And easy to move and clean and all that stuff.

Pretty simple.

If we had a bigger family, then it wouldn’t be realistic to have a small oven. But for a couple or a small family group or a single person, I think small appliances are the way to go!