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The best home cooks I've known have had modest kitchens. What they care about most is their kit – their copper bowl for egg whites, their extra-long rolling pin, their cast iron griddle – and being able to lay their hands on all of this weaponry fast. When your kitchen is your atelier, practicalities are paramount.

This is why, when faced with a small cucina in a rented house without enough storage space for my loot, I copied what I've seen a number of other cooking aficionados do – roar off to the hardware store to buy a six-tier chrome shelf unit to go against one wall.

It is the best thing for oodles of reasons: It's a piece of cake to put together (even I could do it, and I can barely handle Lego); it's sturdy (none of this pressed-wood crap, for which the next stop is inevitably the bin); and it can accommodate enormous quantities of stuff (even more so when you buy several metal hooks from Lee Valley Tools to hang off the sides and load them with braids of garlic, sieves and the like).

A chrome shelving unit may be cold, boring and industrial to look at when empty, but once adorned with steamer baskets, canning pot, food processor, mortar and pestle, saucepans, etc., it is an absolute feast for the eyes. "Action!" it cries.

You wouldn't want an entire kitchen composed of these, but one in the mix really looks pro. And, needless to say, the same unit is ideal for purposes beyond the kitchen: boots and shoes, storage boxes, machinery, pickles and jams and the rest of your canning. I'd go so far as to put it in the category of classic.

Six-Tier Shelf Unit in Chrome, $108 at Home Depot; homedepot.ca

Do you know of a genius domestic product? If so, Laura wants to hear about it. E-mail domesticaffairs@globeandmail.com.

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