Saturday Scrapbook: Kitchen Reorganizing

Ok, so I decided I needed to reorganize my kitchen cabinets.  I love organizing, but as you can see in my pictures, things have gotten out of control.  After living in this house for over 2 years, I finally have my kitchen set up in a way that really seems to be working for us. 

I have changed things here and there over the last 2 years, but this was a big overhaul.  I finally dealt, all at once, with all of the things that were bugging me and it feels good!  We've been living with this new system for a week now and it has been easy to maintain.  After a week, everything looks pretty much the same except there are a few more groceries in the cabinets.  I am loving it!

You will notice you do not see my drawer of cooking utensils and my cabinets with pots and pans, platters, and plates and cups.  I did not picture these because they already function well and stay neat, so I did not change them.



Cabinet above the stove; houses cookbooks, vitamins and medications.  It's a real hassle to see what I have and to access it because I am not 6 feet tall!



 

After!  I had these 3-tiered helper shelves stored in the basement, doing absolutely nothing.  Perfect!  I can see what I have and access it on my tiptoes instead of dragging a chair over and taking everything out to find what I need.





Before; Spice cabinet;  This drove me insane.  I have these cool mini-apothecary jars for my spices, but I had too many duplicates purchased, and my duplicates cluttered the above shelves.  I needed this to change.  I wanted to get my cooking oils, vinegars, and spray into this cabinet badly.



After; Spice cabinet; Success!  I put together all my duplicates and consolidated everything.  Top shelf moved up and I laid my duplicates down and made labels for the lids so I could see what was up there.  I was able to move the shelf up high enough to have my oils and larger items in this cabinet.  This was a huge accomplishment and it has made cooking so much easier!



Here you can see where my oils and vinegars were.  This is a lower cabinet, and if I did not have my oils in exactly the right position, the drawer above would catch them and they'd fall over.  This drove me absolutely batty.



After of the same lower cabinet.  No more tall bottles!  They are safely housed in the spice cabinet now.  I'm such a happy girl!

  

Before; flatware; not too bad, but there was some miscellaneous junk in it.





After; flatware; I just deleted the miscellaneous and added items from the "sharps" drawer



Before; Narrow cabinet next to door; Just a junk collector





After; Narrow cabinet next to door; Took out the junk; added space for things we need to access easily.



Before; side cabinet; This cabinet is above the coffee maker, yet my coffee stuff was scattered about in other places.  There was something tall in here at one point because I had removed one of the shelves.  Obviously, that's not necessary now.





After; side cabinet; I added a basket I had but wasn't using - just put my coffee supplies in it.  It's wonderful having it right above the coffee maker.  I put the formerly removed shelf back in and used it to put my hand mixer on since I have mixing bowls in this cabinet.  Also laid down the extra travel coffee mugs/thermos.  We use these extras sometimes but not often, so I went ahead and put the flashlights in front of them.  This is our flashlight spot; everyone knows where to get them if we have a problem, so I wanted to keep them in the same cabinet.



 



Before; skinny drawer next to door;  Just a mess.  Coffee filters far away from coffee maker, random pen...water bottle flavor packets; and an Eagles can cozy.  Doesn't make much sense at all.  Just an ignored space.



After; skinny drawer next to door; I use these gloves for cooking A LOT.  I love them for handling raw meat or other messy things.  Now they are easily accessible in the drawer under my largest spread of counter space.

Before; Sharps all in one place; When we moved here Noah had just turned 3 and I felt better putting all the sharp things in one drawer so that he could freely use the rest of the kitchen.  It worked out well, but he is now 5 1/2 and more mature and sensible.  (STOP LAUGHING)



This is where the sharps were.  I added most of them to my flatware drawer.  Now the baggies fit in here neatly.  By the way, I rarely use foil so I slid that into the cabinet with the casserole dishes, the most likely place I will use it.  I have parchment paper as well, but I slid that in next to the cookie sheets.  Perfection.



Before; This is random stuff.  Just dry foods, baking supplies, and general whatnot.  Horrible.  Made me want to cry every time I opened it.



After; I took out things I was honestly never going to use.  The biggest thing for this cabinet is the clear bin, another basement-dwelling container that I washed out and put all of my baking supplies into.  I have baked several times since doing this, and what a joy it is to take the entire bin out and use what I need, then return it to its home!  No more searching for baking powder and vanilla extract - it is now all in one place!  This bin has changed my world!



 

Before;  Yes.  This is the sad drawer that housed my baggies and gloves, as well as that stray travel mug and my hand mixer.  It was very, very pathetic.



After;  I created a snack drawer for the kids.  It's perfectly placed in a corner of the kitchen so they can access it without being underfoot.  I'm in heaven!  I added the hot chocolate that was hanging out in the cabinet by the door for no good reason, a few bags of popcorn, crackers and chips.  It's working out very well.

Ok, there you have it...the horror of my mess and the glory of the clean-up!  I am thrilled with my work and I'm thrilled that it works for our home.

Anyone inspired? 

Please comment your successes and anything you need help with that other readers or myself may be able to chime in on.