Organizing the Kitchen

I'm fairly certain that we have the largest apartment kitchen ever. I'm actually going to miss it when we get a house. It's massive and wonderful and I love it - BUT since we moved in we haven't really put things away in a logical way - just kinda put it in cabinets because we wanted it to be put away. Well, it's time to get organized because it's kind of obnoxious having to go back and forth across the kitchen because the coffee filters are one place and the coffee maker is on the other side...


So here we go.


I've found that the best way to organize is to:

• Assess the situation
• Don't necessarily look at the ENTIRE picture - pick one section at a time and focus on that
• Group like items with like items
• Put items in places that are logical - for example: pots & pans near the stove, towels near the sink, etc.
• Take breaks if you need to - it may be a larger project than anticipated, and if you're anything like me, you'll need breaks and probably frequent ones. I get overwhelmed by clutter and messes very easily so when I pull everything out - sometimes I just need to go to a different room and take a breather. 
• Take as much time as you need - don't start if you're expecting people over soon (I've done this - it's generally not very productive).

First, take a deep breath and decide where you want to start first.
I chose to start with the cabinets & drawers closest to the refrigerator.

 

I pulled everything out of the cabinets and drawers.

Originally:
Top Cabinet: cups, glasses, pitchers, Brita filter replacements and drink accessories - top shelf held the pitchers, replacements and accessories which meant they hardly ever got used because it involved, not a step stool, but a step ladder - and sometimes actually having to stand on the counter top to get to the stuff in the back of the top shelf. Not practical for items we use frequently.

Drawer: junk drawer.

Bottom Drawer: Vases, first aid kit, and random things I just put down there to get off the counters. Again, no order so it wasn't really practical.  

Counter: mail collection center  - this was a terrible idea.  

Now: Group like with like.

Top Cabinet: Cups & Glasses

Drawer: Drink Accessories - juicer, Popsicle maker (I put this here because I usually make them with juice), straws (not pictured)

Bottom Cabinet: Pitchers & Vases, Filter replacements

Counter: Bread-maker & cutting board - these items don't fit in any of our kitchen cabinets & while I would like them to be able to be stowed away somewhere, since it's not really an option, I just placed them in the least used place in the kitchen. Not the prettiest, but it worked.

This little corner doesn't get much action, but I liked having the Tupperware stuff near the refrigerator and I liked our drawer of teas over here (next picture).

Originally:
Bottom Cabinet: Food Storage - Tupperware bottom, Ziploc bags, cling wrap, etc.
Drawer: Tupperware tops
Top Cabinet: Some serve ware, cookie cutters, waffle iron...
Counter: bread maker, cutting board, bread, butter, honey, other random appliances.


Now:
Bottom Cabinet: First Aid Kit & Medicines (they're placed closer to the knives than before...which is a good thing because I've sliced my hand enough times that this is important.) Extra Food Storage supplies (duplicates or items we don't use often).
Drawer: Food Storage stuff  - Ziploc bags, foil, cling wrap, etc.
Top Cabinet: Tupperware (Much easier to get in and out) and special occasion serve ware, up high because we don't need easy access to it.
Counter: Breakfast bar!  I put our bread & honey in a bread basket (it used to just sit on the counter), butter, and toaster - great for a quick breakfast since we usually wait till the last minute to grab breakfast. To the right, you can't really see it, but is our creamer pitcher (not filled), sugar bowl and coffee maker.

Originally:
Cabinets: place settings and towels, our wedding plate, champagne flutes and wine glasses (top shelf)
Drawer: exactly the same.


Now:
I really liked having the tea and coffee filters in a drawer - which is why I moved the coffee pot over and made a breakfast bar. That, and where the coffee maker and mugs were originally placed was a high traffic location so Anthony and I were constantly in each others way.
So - I moved the mugs over and placed them above the coffee maker.
Drawer - I left it alone, it was just fine that way.


Again - the key is grouping like items with like.

Originally:
Top Left Cabinet: Cook Books & random nick knacks
Bottom Cabinet: Appliances - placed in no particular order at all
Top Right Cabinet: Towels and place settings and random nick knacks.


Now:
Top Left Cabinet: I relocated the wine glasses and champagne flutes to a more accessible location, and since we use the wine glasses frequently enough, I put them on the bottom and the champagne flutes on the top - since we rarely use them. I'm pretty sure the Hubster is going to appreciate this.


Bottom Cabinet: I rearranged the appliances so that the ones we use most frequently are on top and in the front.  On the bottom we have more party type appliances and serve ware - things we don't use all the time, but enough that being easily accessible is nice.


Top Right Cabinet: This cabinet is close enough to the sink that it makes sense to put the extra dish towels on the bottom. On the top shelf, I placed our table cloths and place settings.

This is pretty much the same, I just got some new storage solutions for the cleaning supply drawer.
I added a towel to catch any water that might drip when putting the things back & I got a drip pan ($5 at Target) to put sponges and the like on after being used.

This is the MOST used place in the entire kitchen!
Originally:
Prep Area 1: Stand mixer, coffee maker, canisters, utensil crocks
Prep Area 2: Oils, Utensil Crocks, Recipe Box, Menu Board
Serving Dishes & Dinner Ware: Held dinner ware and some serve ware (the others were located on the other side of the kitchen)
Kitchen Gadgets: just thrown in the drawer
Utensils: The same with some kitchen gadgets thrown in
Baking Supplies Drawer: Everything just thrown in
Pots and Pans Cabinet: Everything just thrown in - such a huge pain!
Baking Supplies Cabinet: All Bake ware - some nested, some not - made a mess of their lids. All baking pans, attempted to nest them, but always ended up in a fight when I needed the cookie sheets, big measuring cups, mixing bowls, hand mixer
Baking Supplies & Cookbook Cabinet: Random stuff that didn't have a home.


Now:
Prep Area 1: Stand Mixer, Canisters (Flour, White Sugar and Raw Sugar), Utensil Crocks. Removing the coffee maker opened up SO Much more space here!
Prep Area 2: Oils in pretty oil drizzlers instead of just in their store bought containers, utensil crock, recipe box, menu board.
Serving Dishes and Dinner Ware: Now has our serve ware collected in the same spot!
Kitchen Gadgets: Using Bamboo drawer organizers from Bed Bath and Beyond, the gadgets are separated into beverage gadgets, frequently used gadgets (thermometers, pizza cutter, peelers, etc.) and then the larger gadgets that didn't fit in an organizer.
Utensils: Kitchen gadgets have been removed so it only has utensils in it.
Baking Supplies Drawer: Using Bamboo organizers from BBB, I separated them out into measuring cups & hand mixer attachments, measuring spoons, and then other baking items - pie saver, pastry blender, and icing supplies.
Pots and Pans Cabinet: We went to Target and got a pot lid holder, I believe it was about $10. Now no more mess! I pulled the pots we use regularly and placed them on the top shelf. The bottom shelf has pots and pans we rarely use, larger serving dishes that didn't fir in the top cabinets, and "The Beast" aka the most amazing crock pot ever. :)
Baking Supplies Cabinet: Top shelf - Bakeware separate with their lids - anything without a lid got nested. Mixing bowls (nested), and rolling pins. Again, the more frequently used items placed at the front. Bottom shelf - Hand mixer, larger measuring cups (nested), and the muffin pans (nested - they're a little too large to fit with the other baking pans).
Baking Supplies & Cookbooks: Cooling racks in the back, baking pans (nested), cookie cutters, and then cookbooks. The top shelf has a box of items that have no home in our apartment - but will in a house.

Junk Drawers:
Originally these held random kitchen gadgets - but they were so far separated from the prep areas that I always forgot about them.
Now they are our junk drawers - with plastic organizers.
Drawer 1 has things we might need if we're heading out the door: gum, mints, sun glasses, money envelopes, pepper spray (which should really be in my purse and will be as soon as this gets posted), pocket knives/pocket tools, spare change, chap-stick and our coupons.

Drawer 2 has items we might need around the house - tape, lighters, flashlights, lint roller, pens and scissors.

Under-the-Sink Organization

Under the kitchen sink always seems to get way cluttered and messy very quickly. So I decided that needed to change. I, once again, didn't take a before picture - but here's the neatly organized under-the-sink area:

What I did:

• Pull out EVERYTHING from under the sink and wipe down.
• Group like items with like. 
• Figure out what works best for you organization wise and do it!

     I put items that we are likely to use frequently on the outside. The plastic bags, dish soap, and cleaners I use daily or weekly were placed closer to the dishwasher on the right.
In the middle, I took a purple plastic bin I received at one of my bridal showers and placed all the bathroom cleaning supplies in their - including a separate sponge because I feel like you shouldn't use the bathroom sponge for anything else.
     On the left of the cabinet I placed an organizational shelf. I put all dusters on the bottom & placed extra sponges, plastic bags, and cleaning wipes on top.
I don't like leaving my rubber gloves out and I didn't want to necessarily place them on top of something after I use them and their wet so I took a paperclip, unbent it and fed it through the hole on the back of my towel rack. I then twisted the bottom end of the paperclip around a binder clip & use that as a way to hold the gloves. Easy to access and I don't have to lay them down on anything.


-S

DIY: Plastic Bag Storage

     We always end up having an EXCESS of plastic bags that end up accumulating under out sink in a big blob that ends up driving me nuts. Well, sometime last year (after we moved out here to Arizona) Anthony and I came across this brilliant idea on the internot. He actually did this the first time - but since we had to re-stock the bags, I did it this time. All you'll need is excess bags and an empty kleenex box. 

The blob of plastic bags

 Take a bag and flatten it out as best you can. 

Then fold it in half long ways (like a hot dog)

 And then again

Do this to a bunch of bags and then line them up on the ground - with one about half way down the other - and continue the pattern. 

And then roll them up!

Stuff 'em in the kleenex box

 Then pull up the center bag a little bit. Now, when you use a bag, the next one will just pop up - just like the kleenex did before the box was empty!

Now it's easy to store the bags and re-use them without it turning into a plastic bag monster.

Neat and tidy plastic bags to you!

-Sara

Organizing the Spice Cabinet

Just like when I organized the pantry, I didn't take a "before" picture - but you can KIND of see the messiness in this picture:

 

 Things don't really fit - and you can just see that it's completely disorganized (also, please ignore the dinner making mess in the picture. Thank you.)

BUT - it's not so messy anymore:

Taking a note from my pantry organizing fun, the first thing I did was pull everything out, wipe down the shelves and group items with similar things. Then I had to decide where would be logical for things to go.

My biggest issue was the spices. There were SO many and it was SO hard to find everything and nothing stayed together AND we had this huge ferris wheel type spice rack that took up a ton of room on our countertop, yet we hardly ever use most of the spices. Once I realized that I could probably do without most of those spices, I stopped everything and pulled the spice rack out.

I took out all of the spices and separated out the ones we actually use from the ones we don't. Out of 20 spices in the rack, we only used 7. So, I dumped out all the spices we don't use and washed the containers. I then took our spices and poured them into the empty containers. This helped condense a LOT - we had 5 things of cinnamon and 4 things of nutmeg and duplicates of almost all our other spices; partly from my awesome kitchen shower before we got married and partly because I ended up buying spices I didn't think we had because I couldn't locate them easily.

Now I was stuck with spices in containers with wrong labels. The first thing I tried to do was remove the printed labels, but that proved unsuccessful so I went to plan B. I grabbed some red scrapbook paper, the hot glue gun, whole puncher and some yellow ribbon and got to re-labeling our spices. I didn't do the ones that were correctly labeled - but will at some point because I really like uniformity.

Labeling problem fixed, I went on to try and figure out how to stack the spices without going out and spending $10 on a shelf thing. The scavenger hunt was a success! I found 2 identical trays that are about 1"-1.5" tall. I took out the glue gun, glued them together so that they created a stair effect and placed it on the shelf. Then I added all the spices in alphabetical order (because I'm like that). Then I added the rest of our spices that didn't make it into a container to the side of the staired shelf - putting the taller ones in back and shorter ones in front.

On the other side of the cabinet are our "everyday" items - salt and pepper shakers, salt and pepper grinders, oil, pam, toothpicks. And toward the center I put other cooking items, like chicken and beef boullion and kitchen bouquet.

On the second shelf is all baking items on the right side. Using an organizing shelf you can get at BBB or Target, I put baking spices & extracts on the bottom. Food coloring, sprinkles, cupcake liners, frosting, etc. on the top.

On the left side of the cabinet, I placed all our vitamins and stuff like that. And nothing gets put on the top shelf because the second shelf is hard enough for me to reach. :)



The most important thing to do when organizing, is to figure out what works best for YOU - it doesn't matter how I organize my cabinets, if it isn't a system that works for you then don't do it. I do suggest trying different things out though. It took me almost 2 years to figure out pantry and spice cabinet organization!

lots of pretty organized shelves and loves to you,
Sara

Pantry Organization

I go nuts when things get really messy and cluttered. It sends me in a funk and I just want to run through the house and throw everything away. I don't like feeling like the stuff is overtaking us - but that's exactly how I've been feeling about our pantry. Every time I open it, I just want to slam it shut again. I don't want to see it, I don't want to have to go into it. It overwhelms me. So, I decided I needed to organize it and come up with a way system that works for us (and by us, I mean me because the Hubster is not the type of person to get greatly annoyed by the pantry. He's just not.)

So here's what it ended up turning out to be like:

I realize now, that I should have taken a before picture - but I was too focused on fixing the problem, that I didn't...the same thing happened when I organized our spice cabinet and then the entire rest of our kitchen. You will just have to trust me that it was a completely disorganized mess that drove me bananas.

So what did I do?
First - I went on pinterest, searched for pantry organization and read a handful of blogs for ideas. The important thing to remember is that you need to do what fits your lifestyle and not what some blogger says you should do. I ended up incorporating suggestions from a number of different bloggers - and I'm sorry that I didn't keep their blogs handy to link you to them for more suggestions.
 
One of the things that every blogger I read had in common was to remove EVERYTHING from the panty first so I did and that totally gave me anxiety - because that's the type of person I can be sometimes.) Then, I wiped everything down and separated everything - like with like - to determine how many "sections" or "zones" we would need.

After that, I decided which items we use most frequently and arranged them on the easiest to access shelves (the middle ones - shelves 2 & 3). I put the least used items on the very top (because we're short and it's hard to reach) and then the semi-frequently used items on the the last shelf.

Here are the sections from top to bottom"
Shelf One: "Impromptu Entertaining" (That's the Red Box). The box is easy to get down, which is important since we're not tall folk and I would rather not have to dig around on the top shelf for longer than necessary.
 In the box you will find:

• Paper Plates
• Paper Bowls
• Paper Napkins
• Plastic Utensils
• Plastic Party Table Cloths
• Popcorn
• Chips
• Salsa/Dip
• Easy to put together appetizers
• And other quick snacky things.

Next to the red box are all of our serving trays and bread baskets

Shelf Two:  "Baking Items". Everything that I use for baking is on this shelf - extra flour, sugar (brown, powdered, white, raw), cake mixes, chocolate chips, extra baking powder, marshmallows, oil, pudding mixes, frosting, etc. Since we have a TON of baking stuff - I'd rather make it sweet than savory about 90% of the time - I knew it had to have it's own shelf or share a shelf with something we don't and won't have a lot of - so it shares the shelf with the "Weeknight Meals Basket". I use this basket to group all of the dry, non-perishable ingredients for our meals throughout the week. That way, when I get home from work it's super easy to just go and grab out of the basket instead of digging through the pantry. I'm sure this will be VERY appreciated when we have munchkins in a few years.

Shelf Three: "Pasta and Rice". We always have a TON of pasta - it almost rivals the baking items, but not quite. I did my best to group like pasta with like pasta - putting any duplicates together as best I could so I know when we're getting low. Barilla pastas are on the left, then it goes to macaroni and cheese type deals, then "Asian" pastas (Ramen noddles), and Rice.
Then comes the "boxed starches". Hamburger helpers, stuffing, extra bread crumbs, etc. We usually don't have a lot of this so it just gets put towards the back.  The starches share their shelf with "Canned Foods". I used a pantry/kitchen organizer shelf thing we weren't using. Broths and soups are on the bottom, veggies on top - grouped by kinds. Tuna is next to that.

Shelf Four: Separated into 3ish sections: The first section is "charity lunches & snacks", then "Powdered Beverages"- chai tea mix, iced tea mix, hot chocolate, extra coffee, extra tea, etc., and the last section is "Breakfast Foods" since we usually forget to eat breakfast on the days we're working, I figured it didn't need to have a prime shelf spot.

I then labeled each section on the edge of the shelf. It's been a few weeks since we put this system into place and it's the longest our pantry has remained organized throughout our entire marriage! And I have to say, I am glad that we are getting organized well before we have a house to manage and a family to raise. I feel like it's gonna make that a smidge easier.

I hope that, if you're looking for a way to get organized, that this at least gives you a starting point for creating a system that works for your lifestyle and personality.

Cheers!
Sara