Here is my kitchen. It’s where I spend perhaps 75% of my day. There’s the cooking and puttering and such, but those barstools are also my writing spot, the kids’ homework spot, and (more often than not, alas) where we eat dinner, with the kids sitting on the stools and me leaning over the countertop on the other side (whatever, formal sit-down dinners are overrated).
There’s something that my kitchen’s missing, though.
(Ignore the rug; it’s a work in progress.)
Here’s another angle. …See it yet?
…
…
…I have no stovetop. No cooking surface whatsoever.
“But Jordan!” you are surely exclaiming to yourself right this very moment. “How is it that you feed your beloved offspring? Surely your Instant Pot can’t do everything for you!”
‘Tis true. My Instant Pot can do a lot, but as far as I know it cannot (yet) scramble eggs or heat a teakettle. As a mother of two (not to mention a person who, herself, also eats), a stovetop is something that seems kind of…necessary. No?
Let me explain how this came to be. The owner (and prior tenant) of this house had the cooktop removed when he renovated the kitchen, which initially seemed to me like…you know, a thing I’d have to fix. Especially since his rationale for having removed the stovetop was that he preferred having the counter space, and figured he could just use one of those freestanding hot plates whenever he needed to cook something.
Obviously this sounded insane to me.
But then I moved in, and had far too many things on my plate to deal with the stove issue right away. So as a temporary measure, I bought this:
A two-burner freestanding induction stove (plus super pretty, space-saving, affordable, and induction stove-friendly cookware from Caraway).
And now? I may never own a stovetop again. Because as crazy as the owner’s plan sounded…it works. This induction stove is phenomenal – it heats up instantly, and offers precise temperature control. It’s also light, so you can move it around easily, and super easy to clean. You’d think you’d need more than two burners from time to time, but I haven’t really found that, especially when I add in my Instant Pot. And I do love having that extra counter space so much.
Look at all that spaaaaaace!
If you live in a nice, big house with plenty of existing counter space, obviously a for-real cooktop is a nice thing to have (not to mention nice-looking; I still dream of a Wolf range one day). But if you’re in a smaller house, or want to maximize kitchen surface area? I love this hack. Love it.
