When Hobbies Take Over the House

I sometimes wish I had a hobby that didn't require so much equipment. Well, "require" is probably a bit of a stretch, because the truth of the matter is I collect kitchen gear and cookbooks.  Of the several hobbies that I enjoy, the highest on the list is cooking, especially baking. My kitchen is chock full of tart pans, cake pans, sheet pans, Bundt pans, muffin tins, loaf pans, springform pans, pie pans, cake keepers, cake stands, cake decorating equipment, pizza pans, small appliances, and all the little pieces of gear such as spatulas, measuring spoons, mixing bowls...you get the idea. And I do use all of it, or almost all of it, especially since I like to photograph what I make and blog about it.

But the clutter and storage issues involved in my hobby are somewhat daunting, never mind the constant clean-up. Right now, I have all the cabinets full, and my gear is overflowing into our basement storage area. My cookbook collection fills the shelves in the kitchen and the study. I have a file box under my desk containing miscellaneous recipes that I've cut out of magazines or printed from websites. In our last house, we actually had small kitchen appliances in our bedroom closet and my photo studio lived permanently on the dining room table. Something had to give.

So before we moved to Loudoun, I did a serious clearing out of any unused kitchen gear. Hubs and I had done a little bit of that when we got married and combined two houses, but we still had multiples of some things that weren't really necessary and just taking up space in the attic. So we carted off several boxes of unused items and congratulated ourselves for being so organized before the move. The new kitchen is bigger, so we thought we would have plenty of room.

The old adage about expanding to fit the space in which you live is oh so true. I look at how my hobby gear has started to take over the house and I feel guilty, that is until I walk out into the garage. Hubs' current project is converting the garage into a climbing gym, and we're moving out things that would normally live in the garage and storing them under the deck and in the basement.

Have your hobbies threatened to take over your home? Fess up!

Andrea is sincerely attempting to better organize her hobby gear. She blogs about her foodie hobby at Andrea's Recipes.