The Story of Us: A Bowl Full of Lemons Challenge 5: The Kitchen!

Ohhhhhhhkay.
So this week's challenge at A Bowl Full of Lemons was to organize your kitchen.

*gulp*

The kitchen is a major problem area for me when it comes to organization and keeping it neat and tidy. We are constantly making messes in it every day. I make deals with my husband so that he is the one cleaning the kitchen, all the time. So while absolutely needed, this challenge was a big one for me. I decided the best way to handle it was just to attack it bit by bit, one area at a time.

First, the food cupboard. I cleaned it out, threw some stuff out, and reorganized.

Before

After

Then, the area beside our stove.
Before and After

Then, the drawers. This one held BBQ tools and accessories.

Before

After

This drawer is for the dishcloths, tea towels, potholders and aprons. I read in one of the other participating blogs that rolling the towels and dish cloths saves room. It does look much better when they are rolled like that.

Before and After

This week I got a couple of those stick on hooks made by 3M to hang the aprons on the inside of the pantry door. I figure the kids will be more likely to use them when they are easily accessible like that.

Surprisingly, I don't have an apron. I'd like one, but a cool, Erin Bolger/Happy Baker kind of apron...kwim?

The Cutlery Drawer

Before and After

I got rid of all of the plastic cutlery, as well as many of the sippy cups that were still in my cupboard. I threw the lids out a long time ago but was still using the cups. There were at least 20 plastic cups in my cupboard - for 2 kids. I packed those away and just have a set of the plastic drinking cups from Ikea for the kids now. I also packed away the kids plastic bowls and plates that had accumulated over the years, leaving again, just the sets from Ikea that we have.

The Tupperware Drawer

Before and After

The top of the fridge

Before. That's correct - the door wouldn't shut.

After

The two drawers in the island

Before and After

It's hard to tell, but in the above picture, I corraled all the cookie cutters into baskets - one basket for Christmas related cookie cutters, one basket for the rest. All of the chip clip things are in a dish and all of the batteries are in their own container as well. Before, these drawers would barely even open! Now, much better.

Perhaps the change I like best, is right here. The area that holds the cookbooks, phones, phone books, cutting boards, etc. The cookbooks were held in place by two baskets with even more cookbooks in them. There was a bunch of stuff accumulating on the floor in this area too, between it and the kitchen island.

I took a large basket I had from another area in my home, turned it on its side and it was the perfect size for all my cookbooks. I put the phone and the cookbook holder on top. I adjusted the shelves so that things would fit better. The bottom drawer holds the instruction manuals for our small appliances and other things. Then I pushed the whole thing over so that it comes right up against the island. My recipe binder fit in there perfectly as well.

Before and After.

Much Better. My husband couldn't get over the difference in this simple change.

Inside the top two drawers:
Before

After.

(My son's puffers fit in the second drawer too, they just weren't in there when I took this picture...it's been a long week).

There is a bookshelf above this area which is a place of honour for kitchen tools from my paternal grandmother's farmhouse. You can read more about that here.

The other area that needed attention as part of this challenge was my pantry. THAT gets to be very messy, very quickly. I used another blogger's idea of putting unused wipe off placemats down on the shelves to catch drips and spills, making it much easier to clean. Love this idea, as we do have a few kids placemats that we never use that are perfect for that, and things drip and spill in there more often than I care to admit. I didn't take pictures because there is practically no light in that area of my house so the quality would be even poorer than all of the ones above.

My husband also installed a couple of hooks in our stairway down to the basement (just off of our kitchen) for our broom and swiffer. Up until this point they were just propped up against our fridge.

This challenge wasn't hard, wasn't rocket science, it was time consuming. But so necessary in my home, and so worth the effort. Of course I could clean my kitchen anytime, but that's why I really like these weekly challenges; they make me focus, really focus on and evaluate one area of my home at a time, and motivate me to get it done now. I also get ideas I wouldn't normally think of from the others participating. I am learning that baskets and tupperware containers are my best friends when it comes to organization!