Zone 7: Kitchen

Sorry, I took a sick day yesterday.  Yep, sick again!  Imagine that!  I got my week and a half reprieve from the last cold and I'm on to the next one.  Fun stuff!

This one took me forever.  A testament to how disorganized I am, I'm sure.

I didn't even bother with before pictures because I knew this post would be WAY picture heavy anyway.  So you'll just have to trust me that it was crazy disorganized.

I actually love my kitchen.  Even though it's too small for an island and closed off (I normally love open kitchens) and not all "fancy" with stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops, I still heart my kitchen.  I love the cabinets, I love the open shelving even though I struggle with what to put on the shelving.  I especially love my giant window in front of my sink.  Someday we'll make it fancy, but for now it's perfect just the way it is.

There she is!

Now should we dive in and see what got reorganized?

Don't judge the handwriting 'til you've tried it, folks.  Seriously.  I don't have gorgeous handwriting by any means, but it's sure a whole heck of a lot better than this!  Writing on the top of baby food jars that have been painted with chalkboard paint is TOUGH.

I wanted to get rid of the whole spice-jars-on-a-shelf thing.  Every time I opened up that spice cabinet and tried to reach for a spice in the back, inevitably a few jars would come crashing down on me.  This freed up a cabinet and used an extra drawer that was empty anyway and ended up being exactly what I was looking for in a "spice cabinet."

 That was my old spice cabinet (well, the bottom shelf at least).  Now it houses my broths and a few other random things, like my hubby's obsession: Cholula chipotle sauce.

I spray painted the lid to that beef broth jar since it was an ugly bright blue and made my own chalkboard labels.  I'll post a little how-to later.  I used a ton of these chalkboard labels in this kitchen project.

 I have a little basket for seasoning packets and all my cooking oils and wines and vinegars have to go on their side because they're too tall.  Sad face.

Below that cabinet is a magnetic knife strip.  This one is courtesy of Target and was on super special one day.  So it ended up being quite cheap, but I think Ikea is typically the go-to place for these.  We just don't have one of those 'round these parts.  Double sad face.  I loved getting the knife block off the countertop and this keeps my knives out of sight.

See?  You'd never know they were there if I hadn't told you!

Below that cabinet are my pots and pans and cutting boards.  I eventually want to do this little tension rod trick from Better Homes & Garden, I just couldn't find any that would be short enough to work in this space:

I bought a pot lid holder which made a world of difference for this cabinet!  I highly recommend.  Mine came from Tarjay and was pretty reasonable - I think $8?

 This is my baking cabinet.  I used the spice jars from my spices and removed the labels (soaking in hot water for a few minutes and then taking steel wool to the jars is a super easy, quick way to do this, FYI) so I could get rid of all the ugly various boxes and bags that held things like baking soda, baking powder, arrowroot powder, corn starch, etc.  Then I used the chalkboard labels I made.  Again, don't judge.  So tough to write on!

I've also got my coconut flakes and cocoa up here since I use them a lot in baking.

 On the second shelf is raw sugar, xylitol, coconut oil, honey and tea.  Things I use a little less frequently.  And the tea?  Well, I didn't really know where else to put it, so it took up residence in my baking cabinet, oddly enough.

 Up on the top shelf are cookie cutters and food coloring and candles and other cookie/cake stuff.

These big containers are on the countertop under my baking shelf and hold some other things we use a lot.  Is it terrible to admit we use sugar a lot?  Er, I mean we never use sugar when we bake!

Nuts are a favorite snack around here and whole wheat flour is a staple - so we buy it in big time bulk!

 Here's my utensil drawer.  Just a few days ago it was a random drawer filled with indistinguishable items - so many that I pretty much had to dump the whole drawer out to find anything I needed.  I bought that organizer dirt cheap from Home Goods and it made a ton of difference.  And there were totally toys in this drawer when I cleaned it out.  And candy wrappers.  And other equally embarrassing things that I'm clueless about.

Here's my boring old silverware drawer.  Nothing special here.

Next to that is our towel/napkin/dish rag drawer.  Again, nothing fancy or interesting.  Except that it took me three full years in this home to realize that this drawer should be for our towels and rags and the drawer you just saw should be for silverware.  Up until a few days ago, those drawers were flip-flopped.  We had a gigantic drawer for a small thing of silverware and a tiny drawer that was almost always impossible to shut because it was so full of rags.  Sometimes reorganizing is good just because it challenges you to re-think things.  I left it that way for three years just because it's what I knew and it didn't occur to me to do it any differently.

 Here's our gorgeous under-the-sink area.  Heh.  Okay, it's pretty ugly but without a big chunk of change to burn on one of these systems, I have to live with the fact that it will always be ugly under my sink.

PS - Yes, that is totally mouse poison for anyone who noticed.  Once upon a time we had some mice take up residence in our basement and I am so terrified of mice and especially of mice in our kitchen that our pantry and under-the-sink area (BOTH CHILD-PROOFED!!) get a helping of mouse poison during mouse season.  Blech.

source: Martha Stewart

 I hung my duster and mini broom and gloves.

This is our cleaning basket.  It houses all our cleaners and rags.

 We have an abundance of drawers in our kitchen, so that's why some of them look so empty.  I don't have enough stuff to put in all our drawers.  I wish I could say the same for our cabinets!  Anyway, that's our "junk" drawer.  Paper clips, pens, highlighters, sharpies, scissors, tape, you get the point.

This is the kid drawer.  I bought all those baskets from Target's dollar aisles and they were almost made for this drawer!  This is a new addition to our kitchen and I'm in love.  We used to have plates and bowls in one drawer, sippy cups in a cabinet and silverware with our silverware.  I much prefer having it all together like this.

I finally bit the bullet and bought a bunch of matching glass tupperware.  I was so tired of all the mismatched plastic stuff that I never feel good about putting our food in and I really wanted a matching set.  It just seems so much easier to organize this way.

  I've got all the matching items stacked on the top shelf (along with Ben's little bento box-type lunch box you might see in back).

 And the lids are all housed in this basket on the bottom shelf.  You might see my baby bullet system back there.  It's just waiting for a new baby to feed.  :)

 This cabinet holds appliances that I don't want on our shelf (toaster oven, crock pot, blender, yogurt maker, food processor, etc).

And another one holds smaller appliances like a can opener (it's too ugly for the countertop, maybe someday I'll get a matching one I can keep out because I admit it's a total pain to have to go digging in cabinets every time I want to open a can), small food processor, rice cooker, strainers, tortilla press, etc.  You might see the foil and saran wrap and stuff up there.  The plan is to get one of these that's big enough for all of that stuff, but The Container Store is out right now so I have to be patient and wait.

 This is another boring one, and a little embarrassing.  We have super mismatched glasses.  And a lack of them, at that.  This is obviously our cup & glass cabinet.

 I call this our Dave Ramsey drawer.  Calculators, a pen, my coupon organizer and that famous credit card sleeve Dave gives you to get them out of your wallet!

 Here's a close-up of our open shelving.

Under the open shelves is my mail sorter ($10 at Home Goods, woot!).  I love this thing!  Our keys go in one drawer, random little house things go in the other and Tim and I each have our own mail slot.

 And this is my home organization binder.  I'll make a post about this at some point because it changed my life.

 Here's a page from inside.  Love this thing!

 This is my little cleaning schedule I made months ago that stays on my fridge to remind me what to clean everyday.  I wish I could say I followed this religiously.

Phew - that's it!  Thanks for making it to the bottom (if you did)!