Here are some DIY instructions for this outdoor kitchen I mentioned before.

I love this “grey water from your clean dishes waters your herbs” concept, but would like to see it more modular. For me, the dish rack, in a window above my herbs would be the idea setup. This looks somewhat DIY-able.

When I buy something, I look at the product and think about whether it has a multitude of uses. I love utility in things. Seeing this bamboo steamer used as countertop storage for garlic and onions (and other such things), I thought this fits right into what I’m after. Looks great and serves multiple purposes.

I’m inspired by this Driftwood Cheeseboard. For the cost of a soda, a beautiful cheeseboard was created using what would typically be thought of as waste. There’s plenty more ideas for similar projects.

For a while now I’ve been thinking about how to make my home more smarter. Meaning, how can I implement technology into my almost 100 year home? My first thought is that of the kitchen. Not really having a good place to start from, I’ll just dive into what I think should happen (not that I’m implementing this into my house), and I’ll break it out into sections: Inventory, Planning, Meals.

Inventory
A database of what you have in your refridgerator and cupboards will be required. So, for starters, you’ll need to enter that you have 4.5lbs of four, 2 grapefruit, and 4oz of pepper (EVERYTHING will need to be entered). This database will connect with a web interface that is the “homepage” of your house; it will be a private login and this portion will be your “food” section.

Now that we’ve covered what you already have, how do we track what you purchase? Grocist has created something along those lines that uses a barcode scanner. So, when you bring home your groceries, you scan what you bought as you’re putting it away to keep your inventory fresh (pun intended). The database will have a very rudimentary “best if used by date” function that will notify you via email when certain goods are getting close to going bad; we don’t want to waste food!

Planning
Tied into the Inventory Database will be a Recipe Database. The house homepage will recommend what recipes you should use based on ingredients on hand and expiration dates. Additionally, when a recipe is selected to be cooked, the Inventory Database will subtract the amount of ingredients used in that recipe to reflect a precise amount of the ingredients left (e.g. Broccoli and Cheese Recipe requires 2lbs of broccoli and 4oz of cheese, the Inventory Database will subtract the 2lbs and 4oz from the ingredients to show how much – if any – is left).

If a recipe is selected where not all the ingredients are available, the ingredients are jotted down on a grocery list. The grocery list is available for printing or emailing.

Meals
Tied into the house homepage will be a calendar. Not to get too far ahead of myself, but the house calendar will have everyone’s schedule. It will also be a place to plan out meals. By entering the coming week’s meals into the grocery list can be generated. Additionally, a query against the local grocery store sale ads could be added to get the best value out of the shopping.

As new groceries are purchased, scan them in and repeat the process.