Hi Emily, this comment has nothing to do with this post (although I like it!). I saw your post on Instagram about parenting and I just wanted to let you know that I really miss your parenting posts on the blog. I like all your articles but those were my favorite and I would be over the moon if you brought them back.

I’m still holding my breath for a roundup of outlet/switch plate covers. 🙂

Try not buying any more paper towels – load up on cloth dish towels and small rags, and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to do!

And you’ll realize it’s a great reason to have a cute collection of dishtowels – and we all know there are tons out there; plus you’ll USE them! I haven’t bought a roll of paper towels in 10 years. I also only use cloth napkins (lots of cute options there too).

When we remodeled our kitchen, I had two cabinet trashcan inserts included (both double-trash cans), so I have trash/recycle, and trash/dirty linens. It does add to the laundry load, but not by much – we’re talking 1/2 load each week (and we eat home-cooked meals w/ cloth napkins 4-5 night/week). I’m also happy b/c I’m raising my girls (ages 5 and 6) this way too.

Would love to see pet stuff! I bet there are some awesome things for cats and dogs. Maybe a gorgeous birdcage too!

I just love your stream of consciousness writing SOOO much! ✍?

Haha! I just got the #27 Joseph Joseph Totem garbage/recycling container last week! So far I really appreciate it’s size and clean lines. Out of all the horrible, masculine looking trash cans out there, this one is by far the best looking and most practical. The recycling area is a good size, but I do wish it were a hair larger and that the trash were a bit smaller.

I am a big fan of composting and urge you to do it, but I have that compost bin (#15) and would never recommend it. I loved the look of it and the idea that the bin itself is biodegradable sold me. The filter kept the smells away but because of the holes in the lid the fruit flies were HORRIBLE. Out of control even with emptying it frequently. We were using it to hold daily scraps and then emptying it into our worm compost outside. Also the handle cracked on day 1. I ordered it on Amazon before there were any reviews, but looking now I see people are having the same issues.

This kitchen is beautiful! I love all of the details!

Paige
http://thehappyflammily.com

Thank you for introducing me to food 52-I want everything on their site!!

Do you have Compost Now where you live? I’m not affiliated with the company but it solved a couple of problems for us: 1) I feel like a better human because I compost; 2) I can compost the 10,000 paper towles my children use each day!!! Our yard is super tiny so composting the traditional way didn’t work for us. But, with Compost Now, they pick up our compost each week. Super, super easy. If we ever do the large garden project that’s in my head, they will deliver back to us nutrient rich soil. Thanks for the posts; I’m a fan.

So the thing with compost is, if you don’t empty it every day, you’ll get smells and fruit flies. And if you do empty it every day, you really only need a bowl in the fridge (no smells! no flies!). Pick a bowl, any bowl, and just make sure your compost bin is close enough to the back door that you can empty it easily.

Start composting. You don’t need worms. It’s the easiest thing ever – pretty much can’t screw it up. It feels much better than waste and your trees will love you. (I saw this with great concern about adding anything to your very full plate. My plate is also very full and, I can attest, this is totally doable.)

Would you consider a home office, but more specifically a beautiful home tech round up? I’ve seen a lot of posts about organizing stationary but I need help with our multiple screens and oodles of cords. Ideas?

I also would love to know how people use more rags/napkins and less paper towels! The amount we go through is really absurd and not necessary. Plus I’m sick of looking at them sitting on my counter all the time. Specific product recommendations from anyone who has accomplished this?

Hi Emily,

Being the mom of many, we were always out of paper towels because of the number of messes and just the amount of waste with so many towels coming off at once. About 10 years ago, I switched from paper towels to the cheapest volume napkins. A neat stack of napkins in a convenient spot, like on my antique white scales, looks so much neater than a “roll”. A single napkin works for most small jobs and a small stack for bigger jobs. A large package is much cheaper and lasts so much longer than a three pack of paper towels

So you touch on it a bit here, but how about upgraded utilitarian garbage/recycling/composting situations? As a fellow Oregonian, I know that recycling is near and dear to your heart. Maybe you can get a sponsored post together that shows a put-together and pretty home refuse station? I am forever drowning in brown paper bags (I know you’re all reusable in LA but if you can believe it, many of us still have disposable ones!) and I just have this need to effectively store and dispose of trash/recycling/bags so it doesn’t look like I like at a Bottle Drop. Especially since I don’t have much cabinet/pantry space so these babies are going to have to be visible to guests (and worse, me). If anyone can make recycling pretty, it’s you!!

Let’s just pretend they’re going to shoot the inside of your cupboards and get them all purged and clean and styled. Actually I need to pretend they’re coming to my kitchen too. It’s like inviting people to dinner to make yourself clean up and finish projects.

The kitchen accessories look like Arlyn went shopping in Scandinavia … or the American version of it. She even included a Lutheran church lady egg plate … that’s the correct name for the egg holder thingy. It might be known in other denominations too…

Side note but where is that lovely rug (main photo) from?

Switching to un paper towels and reusable cloths is really easy so I always tell people they spend more time worrying about it than necessary! We’ve got a variety of different cloths that we use for different things and 2 kinds of cloth napkins. We’ve got cheap navy washcloths to use for pet messes (never for # 2 though, we keep a roll of paper towel on hand for just in cases), thin cloths for light messes or wipeups, a roll of snapable unpaper towel for heftier messes, crocheted washcloths for wiping down the counter, etc. We’ve got a wetbag that we put our used cloths in until we wash towels the next time. We rarely put WET rags into the wet bag though, I’ll hang them over the sink until dry or damp.
We also compost but we use a cute ceramic crock with a lid and empty it every day or two into our pile out back. I hadn’t read great things about the compost bins like you posted but we’ve had no bug or smell issue using a crock.

I would love to see attractive dog items! Specifically dog beds that are attractive and can’t be ripped apart (may be impossible…).

Thanks for this fun post. I love beautiful kitchen stuff. I am looking forward to pantry reveals & laundry & organization ideas. We are finishing up a major kitchen/pantry/laundry remodel.

I am clearly missing out on many of the joys of being a perfect person, but I don’t give much of a hoot.
What about the environment, folks? Do you care? I read this blog with great interest and really love a lot of the design here but HONESTLY?! Do we need this much new stuff all the damn time?!
What happens to the old perfectly useful stuff? Where does it go!? Are we really comfortable letting it go into the landfill? Is that what being perfect is about? Or is it supposed to be passed on to someone less perfect than ourselves. Do we all need marble cutlery trays now? Is that where we’re headed?! Bah, I’m just not into it!

I’m not trying to be mean here, but Emily, do you sometimes worry about the climate change, maybe lying awake in the middle of the night, and wonder what your own contribution to it might be?

Love this roundup! I’ve been searching for things like this! I was hoping to see a nicer option for dish soap dispenser – I mean, why in the world are ALL the dish soap holders ugly and/or clear?? For the time being, I’ve resorted to using one meant for a bathroom – not great, but it’s ok for now.

The “shower cap” covers are something that was used back in the 60’s. My Grandparents had them and so did we until my Mom really got into Tupperware. My grandparents were brought up in the depression era…they really knew the value of use and reuse. Nanny always reused baggies, rubber bands and twist ties, just to name a few. Very few paper napkins or towels always cloth.
They had an amazing vegetable garden. Thanks to composting :). I have the best memories of hours out there with them in the garden. They let me “help” and play.

You know what makes me want to clean out my kitchen and get rid of grimy tool? Every time I watch Hoarders. Every. Time. My husband ALWAYS knows when I’ve been watching.

Cool stuff!
We have cloth “paper towels” (well, they’re just called that b/c you use them the same way you’d use a paper towel, but there’s nothing paper about them) that someone got me from Etsy as a gift. They snap together to make a roll, but that’s extra work, so I never do that — we just keep them tossed in a basket. (In other words, they’re handy, cute looking rags.) Not sure I agree that using rags in this way and needing to wash them with the rest of laundry is wasteful, especially when compared to the paper alternative. To each her own, but I’m also not sure I’d actually rinse and re-use the same reusable paper towel for a week, so I think those are a cool idea but I’d recommend the cloth ones for most folks, which will also be less expensive in the long run. I do find that when the paper towel roll (yes, we still use those, too!) gets left out it tends to get over-used, but if I store it under the sink, my family members are much more like to grab and use the cloth rags/faux “paper” towels.

One item you / everyone should know about for the kitchen is a dish towel called Nawrap. It’s Japanese, charcoal infused and dries like you wouldn’t believe. It dries glass in an instant with no smears or lint. I have several and won’t use anything else. And they look industrial cool.

I’m ready to break into having a beautiful wood cutting board on my kitchen counter! I was scrolling through, hoping for a recommendation on that. (Though I realize, it’s probably more decor than anything!). Do you have one you recommend?

Thanks for all the great ideas!!! Always looking for that splurge gift for the person who has everything. Can you share info about your cookbook stand?

As always, LOVE your writing style! But SERIOUSLY?!? For your 39th birthday – an oven mitt? Granted it’s a beautiful mitt, but an oven mitt?

An alternative to counter top compost bins (which work fine if you empty often) are freezer bins for compost, or even just a biodegradable or plastic bag in the freezer: no bugs, smells etc. Just take it to your outdoor green bin or composting set up when a bag fills up. Easy peasy!

Haha! I think you need to proof read a little better. I am sure you did not mean to use the word ‘basic [email protected]# sponge”. Thanks for all your updates!

This is intended as thoughtful editorial criticism. This post feels like it could exist on any personal blog/lifestyle site. There is nothing that ties directly to the Emily Henderson brand for me, but I can narrow down my aversion to two things: 1) I don’t trust the recommendations because it looks like a color palette drove this selection. A counter to this was when Emily tried on and recommended Nordstrom sale clothing. That voice was authentic. You had clearly felt the weight of material, the quality of zippers. The recommender doesn’t always need to be Emily for this to work. Guest voices are welcome. 2) These aren’t special finds—I cannot get away from several of these items in my sponsored social media ad experience. (I’m a 32-yo professional, married woman without children.) Alternatively, the etsy round-ups are wonderful because they fit a clear aesthetic commonly seen on this site, and aren’t as commonly recommended on other sites. If the upgraded utilitarian round-up went deeper on specific types of goods it would fit in the site better to me: utilitarian sponges, composting accessories, trash cans, dish soap, … I know there are many metrics that will tell you whether this post… Read more »

Love the wooden bowls in your cabinets! Can I ask where they are from?

This is a great roundup but I feel like this wool dish drying mat is missing:

https://sonomawoolcompany.com/products/dish-drying-mat/

It is so much prettier than the World Market mat!

Hey Emily,

Quick question – doesn’t the fancy oil decanter (which I would LOVE) get terribly dirty/greasy? Sure, it is lovely and looks amazing in photos but how does it look in real life when you’re cooking for six every night?! I keep an ordinary glass bottle on a pretty tray near my cooker and I find that I have to clean (with soap and hot water) it and the tray weekly, at least.

Cheers, Emma

Please label the items with the photo next time since it was hard to tell what a lot of these were.

You will have to pry my OXO tools from my cold dead hands. I have yet to find a can opener that works better than OXO and, I won’t own a tool/pot/appliance just because of how it looks if it can’t perform.

I use an olive oil glass bottle for dish soap. Is a little slow but so pretty.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I would love a post showing the inside of your cabinets/drawers/soul. And also those of anyone on your team. Or your friends and family. Or complete strangers. I live vicariously through the organizing efforts of others!

I’ve really enjoyed these lists. Please keep them coming. They are great for finding gifts for that person who “has everything.”

I would love to see an alternative to ugly old plastic box fans. That necessary evil of summers in Los Angeles with no AC.

People are always a little off put when they come to my house and see my kids drinking from moscow mule mugs. Two summers ago, they were everywhere. I had to have them. Then I realized that I don’t like moscow mules. I got rid of almost all of my kids’ sippy cups (we have one special one for my daughter’s nightly milk only) and use copper mugs for their drinks. They can’t break them and they are beautiful. Win win win (except when new people come over and look at me quizzically).

I would have loved to see the utility of the “utilitarian” post. I love many of the voices that shine through on this site and I really wish ANY OF THEM had tried the products prior to recommending them. We all wish our cleaning supplies were prettier. You know why we keep buying the ugly ones? BECAUSE WE ACTUALLY USE THEM TO CLEAN. I am wildy capable of buying pretty stuff. I wish instead of searching the internet for pretty cleaning supplies, your team would have tested some of them and recommended the ones in the middle of the Venn Diagram of “pretty” and “useful.”

How about a roundup on nice pet things?

Hi there!

Loving the concept of the utilitarian post. I’m always looking for ways to make everything aesthetically pleasing (while still functional). I’m wondering if you have any good ideas for litter boxes that aren’t totally and completely heinous, as well as other much needed pet supplies? Would love to know!

Could you share the name of the blue/green paint color on your lower kitchen cabinets please? Thank you so much

This post was hilarious Em! I died like four times. For one thing, I didn’t know it was a thing to remove your laundry soap and put in another container…haha lifestyle mafia indeed! Also funny is that my mother has half of these kitchen things, and she’s not on social media at all. She just can’t bear to have anything “ugly” in her vicinity AT ALL. She refuses to have a draining rack and prefers to instead wash her dishes by hand and use the dishwasher as a drying rack! Drives me crazy… But she does have ordinary cleaning stuff, so I’m gonna have to forward your laundry/cleaning posts to her. Thanks, Em!