Lovely. Now you've got to keep them like that LOL

Ah yes where is the line between negligent elegance (this) and plain old clutter (most of my house). I have a few spots of elegant disorder so I know it when I see it. Creating it on the other hand.....

The pots look very shiny and the rack is gorgeous and functional. Congratulations!

Wow! Spectacular. I agree with plllog. Leave the top open if you can.

A few things I would do:

1. A pulley system to raise and lower the rack.

2. Cut a clear piece of plastic to put on top to protect it from dust and crease. It can be very difficult to clean the rack.

3. The tongs look out of place. Get a copper pair.

dcarch

Wow, looks beautiful with all the pots hanging. Even the tongs look like they belong.

Good job and good suggestions by DC.

Yes, I think one should always guard against crease on a pot rack. I love that typo dcarch! It's just making me giggle.

I've only ever seen them in magazines and yours is stunning. I'm glad it's you and not me that's cleaning it though. :-)

I've got crap in the blind corner cupboard that I have no idea what to do with. I hate those things, they should be outlawed.

I like the red tongs, keep those. I have a stainless steel one pot rack, and I have a mishmash of different kinds of pots and pans, mostly SS but a few vintage copper, also some enamelware, (not that I use them but I like how they look). Also baskets, a fry basket, grill pans, fry pans. It's not organized and neat like yours at all. But I love it.

Here is a picture from the other side. Now you see the clutter!

The range we installed last year is in the background. I'm still in love with it. The burners were the selling point, but the oven is impressing me too: huge, fast heating, even heat, and it will hold a very low temperature. Last week I cooked a beef stew at 200F for six hours, and that wasn't even the oven's lowest temperature.

All the upper cabinets on the range wall will go away. That will be a tiled wall (I know, white subway tiles are cliche, but I don't give a hoot) with a big vent hood.

Off to the left, you can see the alcoves that I'm going to tear out and replace with built in pantry cabinets. I'm thinking drawers for pots, canisters, dry goods; shelves for bottles and cans; maybe an appliance garage since there is power. Getting ready to start that this month.

SWMBO wants a small freezer in the kitchen. Right now we have just the commercial refrigerator, with a big freezer in the basement. Apparently that puts ice, ice cream, and frozen berries (for smoothies) too far away. I may expand the place where the refrigerator sits, to also hold a small freezer and, above that, more cabinets. Then someday the next owner can fit a really big refrigerator in there.

There is a weird little 3 foot long hallway after the alcoves. You can just see it. Currently wine bottles are stacked there, higgledy-piggledy. We want to build some proper wine racks to waist level, then above will be bookshelves for cookbooks. Right now my cookbooks live in the dining room, which is okay but not so convenient.

That's a beautiful batterie! I remember when you bought that rack, because I think I was in Cookin' in the same time period. And the kitchen is not cluttered, it's an actual kitchen that is used.

Polishing stuff up can be a PITA. I've found that Demeyere cleaner or Dawn Power Dissolver works well on the stainless steel -- some use oven cleaner. I'm liking Wright's for my copper -- I am thinking of putting it on open shelves, but then I think I'd need to order cases of Wright's.

Jasdip said

"I've got crap in the blind corner cupboard that I have no idea what to do with. I hate those things, they should be outlawedl"

I hate them too. I'm going to eliminate blind corners in my kitchen. Someday.

From that view it looks like it has alway been there...it belongs. A nice balance with everything else going on. We are all tweaking, expanding, making thing work somehow. In the middle of a mini reno right now solving some issues.

One is making lower deep vintage cabinets from useless dark holes needing down on hands and knees to dig through, to full pull out extension drawers....ahhh. It is a long galley, no dead end and... no..blind..corners...ahhh.

And just did a Spring thinning of drawers of useless stuff that we have not used at all this year but will need that one 'thing' since i just put it in a box....now where to put that box...

Gorgeous copper should be displayed, used, and handy. Good choice!

Both my Mother and MIL have horseshoe kitchens with two blind corners. Useless unless some crazy pull-out extension thing is put in. Often it really is hard to avoid. Some crafty options exist. I had one in my last kitchen.

John, if you can't find copper tongs, you can copper plate steel tongs. All you need is copper sulfate (eBAY) and a battery to plate metal.

I have even copper plated my plastic telephone sometime ago.

A pulley system can make lifting heavy loads much easier. They do make copper pulleys.

dcarch

It does not look out of reach to me. We made a overhead pot rack in our last place and everything was easily removed by one hand.

HomeGoods has copper clad everything right now...(the brain-dead store)....i swear the mist 'stupid juice' in there. I immediately wandered like the walking dead, then start sneezing....lol. I saw ladles and tongs in copper last week....

I was looking for a roaster pan, then bought pillows and a dog toy that was destroyed and fluff in minutes once home.....

Try Penny Brite for the copper. Inexpensive and effective. I learned this from a person who etched copper plates. I've never found it in stores, just ordered online.

John, that's a beautiful pot rack. Elery is looking for one for our kitchen. I'm about 5'2", so can't reach most things hanging from pot racks anyway, but our ceiling is only 7 feet, so maybe. The other issue is that with our low kitchen ceiling, tall people will bang their heads on the pots, LOL. It can't go over the island because there is heat register there, I'm not quite sure why.

Anyway, I love all the copper, it's beautiful and useful. And sometimes labor intensive, apparently. (grin)

Annie

Wait, the heat register is in the ceiling above the island? That doesn't seem like a reason to not place the pot rack there. You can position the hooks and chains on either side of the rack, e.g. a chain at each corner of the rack.

You could also hang only the small and medium pots, leaving the largest pans elsewhere. That would leave enough clearance above the island and below the hanging cookware.

Yes, the copper pots add some work. I made dinner tonight in the medium copper saucepan. (Deboned chicken thighs, browned then braised in sherry, onions, garlic, butter; chicken removed and braising liquid zapped in blender to a smooth sauce; spinach and arugula cooked in the sauce, to the consistency of creamed spinach; slice chicken and mound the sherry spinach on top: accompany with roasted new potatoes.) Took an extra two minutes to polish the copper pan using Twinkle paste. I hung the shiny pan back on the rack, and Was Pleased.

That is a beautiful pot rack and looks like it belongs in your kitchen. Wonderful job on the copper cleaning;bet that will become second nature and you won't even notice the time it takes.

My hanging rack is much more crowded than yours and makes a delightful sound during earthquakes. I hang more than pots on mine, however, as I find it a very convenient place to store frequently used utensils. Yours is much prettier than mine.

I don't see any open counters in your kitchen. Is there a table under the rack? Mine is over a peninsula.

Yes, there is a work table under the pot rack. To eventually be replaced with an island.

John, my house is strange. It was originally a small house on a cement slab with an unattached garage. The owners built on an addition on the back, then decided to attach the garage and enclose the breezeway between the two buildings. That's my pantry now and the heat register was there before there was an island, or even a kitchen, I think. Then a big room was built on the front, with lots of windows which overlook the pond. There were several extremely small rooms, like a mouse maze, and we started tearing down walls.

Anyway, my issue with the heat register is that it is rather large, and I am kind of thinking that when it blows heat, or cold air for the air conditioning, it's going to blow whatever is in the ductwork all over my pots and pans hanging there. Now that I have the new island, though, I'd sure like to have a potrack there, right over the new cooktop, so we'll see how that works. I change my mind each time we change something in the kitchen, so it's definitely a work in progress. I've stained the back "cover" and oiled the butcherblock top since this picture, which is uncluttered because we were building it, LOL.

Annie

"---Now that I have the new island, though, I'd sure like to have a potrack there, right over the new cooktop, ---"

Think again. Heat rises, bringing with it grease, even with down draft ventilation, there still will be some grease.

dcarch

(sigh) Yeah, I know. Which is why I've changed my mind more than once. Elery is patient, thankfully.

Annie

Annie, I don't think (from photos in the other thread) that you have downdraft ventilation, right?

I think it will depend on how much you fry. I stirfry, saute, deep fry a lot so grease is a real issue in my kitchen.

Your new island looks great!

John, Elery says we do have downdraft ventilation throughout the house except in the new front room that overlooks the pond. He says it is not efficient for heating but it's efficient for cooling and that's probably why this room is different, it was added when the geothermal heating/cooling system was added. Even the heating system in this house is odd. I just measured, there are 47 inches between the ceiling and the cooktop, so there might not be sufficient space to cook under that rack after I hang a rack and hang pans. That might make it impossible to place a large stockpot or something similar there. Maybe a pot rack along the west wall there on the left in that odd alcove that used to be the wall of the house before they turned the breezeway into a hallway. Right now my pans are all in the pantry, there is no place to keep them in the kitchen, so that's inconvenient.

I don't deep fry a lot, but I do saute a lot of things, and will often toss a piece of meat into a hot cast iron pan to sear and then finish it in the oven. I don't stir fry very often, and I don't know why, I suppose it's just not something I did a lot when I was younger so it's not ingrained in my menu planning. I like stirfried dishes a lot and they are relatively fast, other than the prep, so I need to get them into my steam of consciousness, somehow.

Thanks for the good thoughts on the island. It looks better now that I've oiled the top and stained the back. I'm happy with it, neither of us are carpenters, and for two rank amateurs, it came out better than I had anticipated it would. I had horrible visions in my head, LOL. But I still need some kind of a prep surface there at the end, and I'll have to have a stepstool to prep anything on the island top, so I need some "my size" work space.

Annie

@johnliu -- perhaps the best way to accessorize the beautiful new rack is to add some new copper. Falk is clearing out their other warehouse and just started a sale. :) I don't know about you, but find the brushed finished easier to maintain than the hammered, for example.

There are some excellent prices there. I've never seen a Falk pot, but they look really nice.

@John Liu -- they are well-made. The differ from Mauviel or Bourgeat in that the exteriors (and interiors) are brushed, versus mirrored or planished. Thus, they won't glisten like yours (the planished/hammered especially catch the light), but I think they take a bit less maintenance. Perhaps more interestingly, they come in shapes that are not made anymore by the other makers of stainless-lined 2.5 mm copper.

The flared lips on the Falk pots are a great feature. I bet you can pour from those pots without making a dribbling mess.

I'm kind of done buying copper, unless I stumble on a piece at a garage sale or something. Last year I found a great big hammered copper stockpot at an antique store, that was tempting, but too expensive. We have 16 copper pots and pans, including the usual pieces as well as weird ones (fish poacher, crepe pan, tamago pan, etc) plus lids. That's really enough. We bought most of them 20 years ago on trips in France. They are memories as much as cookware.

Yeah, at 16 pieces (plus other stuff) I'm certain you are feeling a bit overrun -- and quite busy with the polishing. And to have those memories is certainly a treasure -- and something you can relive each time you use it.

A fish poacher! I've seen those and always wondered if I'd ever use it. A tamago pan is even more unusual -- for making square omelets and rolls, I suppose. The non-classical saucier shapes are quite handy, it's probably their best shape, especially with their flared rims.

I realized, that doesn't include a few more pieces in storage, waiting for retaining. Yes, definitely not buying any more copper.

The tamago pan is interesting. It is meant for making omelet rolls, basically. I suppose you could make a square frittata or something like that.

John, you made me go and look up tamago pan.

I just noticed that you put the lids on the handles of the appropriate pans when hanging them, now THAT'S a good idea. Right now I just scrounge around and play "fit the pan" until I find a lid that fits. It's very inefficient....

Annie

Cooking eggs in a tamago pan is fascinating. I've never seen eggs cooked like that before. Looks tasty.

Nice looking rack. Now you need nice copper appliances to go with it! :)

Nooooo! There is such a thing as too much copper.

For you, John! Our local restaurant supply store has Kitchenaid copper cookware on for 1/2 price.

I was in Sur La Table today, and made the mistake of looking at a hammered copper Mauviel stockpot. $770. I'm not kidding.

Wow. $770? For one pot. I love copper and have a few copper pans and bowls, and I looked wistfully at that copper KitchenAid stuff. (sigh)

Annie

Not cool! They hammer fairy wings into those pots!

Okay, that's probably just a rumor, but you'd think it was true at that price. Those dwarves have a great union, huh?

The new Brooklyn Copper Cookware stock pot was just released. It is just $1050. Free shipping, hah. For that price you get a handcrafted 3mm pot made in the USA. Yikes. I could not fathom.

http://shop.brooklyncoppercookware.com/collections/frontpage/products/copper-stock-pot

I think the kitchenaid set may not be not pure copper, but has a layer of aluminum inside. They call this triply

Your Sur la table is much different than mine. I have never seen a hammered tin lined Mauviel at the ones in norcal. It's nice stuff, right? 3 mm+?

Very nice stuff, 3 mm, stainless lined.

But I don't see the point of this construction for a stock pot. Other than for the looks.

I found the same stock pot, used but excellent condition, in a second hand store for $400. I was tempted for about 3 seconds, then turned firmly on my heel and walked quickly to the other side of the store, holding my wallet firmly shut.

I see that the new Mauviel 3 mm stuff no longer has cast iron handles. The handles are now bronze. Bronze has even lower thermal conductivity than cast iron, so it is probably an improvement.

@john -- the BCC pot is actually tin-lined. They just restarted production last year. I agree though, I don't see the point of this type of construction in a stock pot. Any decent thick-based pot will do just fine. I have a 2mm copper stock pot that I got off Ebay for $60. Yes, it simmers wonderfully and is beautiful but it wasn't $1K or even $770. $400 is a much better price, but still....

I read that the newer Mauviel and all of the e.Dehillerin stuff has bronze handles due to a fire at the cast iron handle supplier. I have bronze handles on a few tinned pieces and they still get really hot.

I thought the hammered Mauviel was tinned inside as well. ?

@pillog, I believe the Mauviel hammered is all tin-lined. I have the dutch oven and a sauce pan.

Sorry, I was mistaken.

The hammered stuff is so pretty. I don't have any :-(

Understandable!! You were dazzled by the glow of the fairy wings!

The hammered finish does catch the light beautifully -- I can believe there are fairy wings involved. Unfortunately, those fairies leave a mess behind and the patina is tougher to remove from all those divots and swales.