Small Ways | Trays

Or, the tray-drawer, to be exact

Simple. Reachable. Doable. Small ways. They pack enough punch to change your world, or your day. Or maybe, simply and gloriously, they’ll change your moment. Small Ways is a series about small objects, small gestures, small touches. Small ways for living well.

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You might keep a round wooden tray on the kitchen counter beside the stove, to hold the oil bottles, the salt and pepper shakers, a salt cellar, a head of garlic. Maybe you’ll find a giant silver tray at a thrift store one day, for $10, and know immediately that it’ll sit on the round end table in the living room, where you have an ever-changing exhibit of flowers or plants, along with small nature treasures like feathers, antlers, rocks, or robin’s eggs. Using a pretty tray is like framing a story.

But also? You might find that trays are immensely practical. On a shelf, they act as a shallow drawer, easily slid out and in. A tray-drawer, you could say. And on shelves that are high, deep, or complicated (a blind corner cabinet in the kitchen, oy), they can ease your frazzled mind. Need something on the back of that high shelf? First, put all your things on a tray, then the tray on the shelf, and when you need something, just pull the tray-drawer out with one hand, while reaching for what you need with the other. No need to move every item in front, one at a time, to get to the one you want in back. See?

Once you see, you’ll recognize all the places you can put a tray-drawer. Even in the refrigerator, on the shelf that’s got space just high enough for a carton of eggs. Turns out it’s also just high enough for a tray coralling all the short jars: jam, capers, mustards, bouillon, leaving the fridge door shelves for the tall bottles and jars.

In the little house, the stacked washer and dryer were tucked into a tall built-in cabinet beside my desk. To the right of the stacked machines inside the cabinet was a narrow gap of space where I stored the ironing board and, from hooks in the cabinet wall, the broom, mop, and dust pan. On the inside of the cabinet door hung the duster and hand brooms. The top of the dryer was the only horizontal surface to store other laundry-related things. Reaching everything that wasn’t on the outermost edge was the issue for petite me.

So, the tray-drawer idea was born. Here, I could pull the tray out to reach what was on it, or I could pick it up and move it (and its contents) to a nearby surface entirely, to reach the Bigso boxes behind, which held not often needed things. It was a functional, space-using revolution! (Revelation?)

On one tray, I had what you see in the top photo above: an enameled pitcher with decanted bulk powdered laundry detergent and a right-size measuring spoon inside, a bottle of wool shampoo, a jar of fabric brightner, and, out of sight in the photo, a stain bar. The other tray held ironing essentials: my iron, travel steamer, and a water spray bottle. And the trays themselves? Made of 100% linen, coated with a food-grade poly-resin. Beauty and function, served.

Just recently at Pond House, I spent time settling the laundry area. It’s in an alcove, with the washer and dryer side by side and two cabinets above. I have plans to make it even better than it is right now, but this middle step was a confident leap better than what it was. I scrubbed the cabinets inside and out, installed shelves in the right places, then unpacked the boxes labeled Laundry. What fun to pull out those trays, and, in a different house, in a different cupboard, have my laundry things sitting pretty and easily accessible once again.