When I was in my second year of medical school, my mother and her husband bought a house near my school and asked if I could house sit for a month or two. I had been living about 80 miles away from campus which, on a brutal medical school schedule, just wasn’t practical. I had taken to finding places to sleep on campus, but that was a bit risky and not comfortable. The offer of a place to stay within biking distance was most welcome.
The sale of their old home fell through, and I ended up staying longer than expected. Then they began to remodel the house, so I moved into the basement. (So, yes, at 35 years old I was living in my mother’s basement.) It had a bathroom with the toilet and shower in one room and a fairly large dressing area. There was enough room in the dressing area for me to fit in a dorm fridge next to the sink, upon which I placed a microwave oven, and on top of that a single-burner butane stove.
Life was getting better, but the lighting was awful and there was no storage — no place to put my Griswold iron skillet and other cookware. I walked to a boutique kitchen decorating store, and found the pot rack pictured above (and the butane burner). Next I walked over to the boutique lighting store (it was a pretty touristy area) and bought a 4’ fluorescent tube that I zip-tied to the back of the pot rack. It gave excellent (if fluorescent) light. It made for quite a serviceable kitchen for a medical student who was rarely home anyway and ate most “meals” at the hospital cafeteria.
I found that the hanging pots worked really well for me. I have had the pot rack at three different homes since, and today I put it up in our kitchen at the island place compound where we’re really hurting for storage, and I think it will be great once again.
—2p