Back when we had our condo, we kept both our garbage and recycling cans in those under cabinet pull out drawer things.  It was practical then, because we didn’t have any wall space to stick one garbage can, nevermind two, but I hated that they took up precious storage space.  So when we got this new place, I began eyeing this Simple Human semi-round stainless garbage can…

Mike originally didn’t want to leave a garbage out in the open, but I stressed the ease of people coming over and not having to give directions to the can.  And also being able to move it to places where we were chopping or making other messes.  It would also add some prettiness to the side of our island, which was a plain old side of a cabinet. I obviously won the battle, despite the expense of the can, but if you’re sticking it in the middle of your kitchen, it better be a nice one, right?

We figured since we no longer use water bottles, we wouldn’t have enough recyclables to justify a can.  We planned to just bring them out to the garage when we had to.

But since we use a can of cat food a day and get mass amounts of junk mail, it seemed that we couldn’t keep up with the trips to the garage.  We always had a pile of cardboard/paper and one for cans on our countertop.  I hate cluttered countertops.  Like, I couldn’t relax at night unless everything was cleared off.  So one day we were in Target and I spotted this small basket…

I wasn’t looking for a solution, but I just loved the dark color of the basket and the idea immediately popped in my head to use it as a place to store our recyclable paper before we bring it out to the garage.  I knew it was more realistic to accept the fact (especially with winter approaching) that we wouldn’t be making 3 trips out to the garage per day.  So we began using it and it worked like a charm, living on top of our fridge and getting emptied about every two weeks with the recycling pick up.

I also liked that it brought a little more of the dark brown warmness into the room, since there’s some dark brown in our backsplash tiles.

But we still had the can issue, which was fine until a few weeks ago when we went on a seltzer kick.  Suddenly we couldn’t keep up with those trips to the garage either.  Then once again, while randomly walking past the basket aisle in Target looking for picture frames, I noticed they had a round version of our small rectangular one.

I put it on the floor, in the corner between our cabinets and our sliding glass door.  It’s mostly out of sight, but I once again like the dark homeliness it brings in.

Garbage can, meet basket…

And basket, meet garbage can…

(Yes my curtains are wrinkled.  I will get on that.)

So far the process has worked wonderfully…it has been practical and efficient, yet pretty.  We have to decorate practically around here, since we have a 4 legged terror running around…

“Oooh nice basket!! MINE?!”