Mission:Organization [Kitchen-Part 4]

Wow, I can't believe that the majority of my kitchen has finally been organized. Clayton decided to aid in helping by puchasing me this cool tool holder today (you can see the older/smaller one in a pic below). I was thrilled! He also bought me a bunch of new KitchenAid tools to go in it and a matching spoon rest. He is so thoughtful. :)

Time to get down to business. My cabinets finally were completed this morning. I finally quit procrastinating and just did it. It really helped that hubby took the kiddos out with him to do some shopping.

The cabinets pictured above are the ones on the right side of my sink. I keep all my plates and bowls in cabinets above the bread box. The corner cabinets also contain my roasting pan, food trays, kid bowls/plates/trays, and coffee mugs.

This is the little cabinet next to my dishwasher. Looks a bit narrow, huh? I remember looking at it and wandering what the heck to do with it when we moved in. You would think that it would be perfect for baking sheets but that doesn't make sense because there is already a baking sheet drawer below my ovens and the location isn't convenient to the oven area. I decided to store my cooling racks and serving trays in there. It also has a dish rack in it but I am going to throw it out now that I think about it (it hasn't been used in ages).

Mission:Organization [Kichen-Part 4, continued]

This is the main cooking area of my kitchen and where I spend alot of my time. The cabinet to the left contains alot of appliances and containers with the top shelves holding the least used items and the bottom ones holding frequently used items.

The middle cabinets above the microwave hold all of Clayton's beer glasses and mugs. I also store items to make mixed drinks on the top right shelf.

The cabinet to the right of the microwave houses all of our drinking cups/glasses. Notice how I have some storage room left? Gotta love that. ;)

The cabinets above the fridge contain 3 bins and a large Ryland folder that contains all of the information about our house. We rarely access these cabinets so I decided to store tax refunds in one bin and all of our operation manuals in another. The third bin is empty until I find a need for it.

Left-all of my cookware lids on top (shelf slides out) and my rice cooker on bottom

Middle-small appliances that I use occasionally

Right-pots/pans on top (shelf slides out) and stock pots on bottom

This silverware drawer on the left side of the cooktop. The drawer on the right side contains all of my wraps and baggies (not shown as I forgot to take a pic).

This my kitchen cleaning supply area under the sinks. I hope to get an organizer in there soon to make it hold 2 levels of stuff.

Mission:Organization [Kitchen-Part 3]

Today I am focusing on our kitchen island which is also my main food prep area.

In the left drawer I have a chrome silverware sorter and some loose tools (ha ha, that sounded like loose stools). The sorter is arranged by groupings: can openers, bottle cap openers/cork opener, ice cream scoops, thermometers/candy making supplies and potato peelers. The green container holds all of my corn on the cob holders plus a corn cob scrub brush. The main drawer holds more food prep tools and my cutting boards.

Here are my cabinets below the main drawer. The one on the left contains alot of spices that aren't used very much (I have a spice rack with the 40 most popular spices on my counter) and baking ingredients. I haven't really organized those 2 shelves just yet but that will be happening soon. The top shelf on the right has my measuring spoons/cups and some mixing bowls. The bottom right shelf has a large bin with lots of small Tupperware containers for leftover foods. Finding containers to pack Clayton's lunch has been a lot easier since I found this bin. It fits perfectly into the cabinet lenghth-wise and width-wise so we get maximum storage potential out of it.

This is the cabinet below the left side drawer. The top shelf pulls out to reveal all of my bento lunch supplies. I have containerized all of my decorative food picks, sauce cups, shape cutters, food cups and dressing bottles. The bottom shelf has a bin that we throw all of our recycling in. It serves as a holding area before the litter gets taken out to the recycling bins in the garage. It fits perfectly into the space and can hold alot which keeps us from running to the garage all the time. I will say that this bin has saved my island countertop from being cluttered with broken down food boxes and plastic drink bottles. :)

I hope you all are enjoying my organization posts. I will be focusing on all the other cabinets in my kitchen in the next post and that will be the final post for that area of my home (with the exception of my food pantry/refrigerator-those will have to come later as they are still a disaster, lol). Have a great day!

Mission:Organization [Kitchen-Part 2]

Messy countertops are always my downfall when I try to keep our place clean and organized. They just seem like the perfect place to put all of our paper clutter, dirty dishes, mail, food, etc. Ugh! It can be so frustrating. I decided to tackle this problem by first organizing the desk area that I posted yesterday to eliminate the paper and mail clutter. That has helped tremendously! Then I decided to clear off my countertops of all the appliances and things that I rarely use. They were taking up valuable counter space and kept everything looking so junked up. Now I have lots of room for meal prep. I love this!! Now we just have to get a curtain and paint the walls. After that, I will get some decorations to go on top of the cabinets. Yee haw, I can't wait! :)

BTW-Hubby and I were discussing the canisters on the window sill and we are going to get rid of them. We are also going to trade out the matching utensil holder and get a bigger one to replace it. I am thinking maybe a chrome one?

This is my newly organized oven area. I put things that I rarely use on the top shelves (pasta machine, electric knife, and glass bread pans) because I can't easily access them. Using a step ladder from time to time is no big deal but heck if I am going to use one to get things that I need daily. I would like to note that my cabinets are really deep but I choose to only store things in the front part of them. I am blessed with more storage areas than I could ever need in this house so I don't push things back to where I cannot see them. Anytime that I ever did that in the past, I ended up forgetting what was in my cabinets and the stored items never got used. What a waste. Anyhow, the middle shelf over the ovens is used to store glass/porcelin bakeware and the bottom shelf stores all of my metal bakeware (and a few small glass bowls). The drawer below my ovens contains all of our baking sheets.

In the cabinet on the upper right, I have all of my nice baking/serving dishes that my Grandmother gave me on the top 3 shelves. The bottom shelf contains everything that Clayton needs to make his morning coffee.

The drawer on the right contains all of my aprons, hand towels, and pot holders. The cabinet below holds baking supplies. I keep a round Tupperware cake taker (not shown), a lazy susan that rotates my cake taker base (to aid in decorating) and cupcake liners on the upper shelf. That shelf pulls out for ease. The bottom shelf contains 2 Tupperware cupcake/sheet cake takers and a cupcake stand that I use for parties.

Wanna see how I organize my island and bento stuff? That will be my next topic so stay tuned!

Mission:Organization [Kitchen-Part 1]

I have been a busy little bee lately. Organizing the kitchen has been my recent project and now I have some progress to show ya'll. This is my desk area in the eat-in dining section of the kitchen. It was a total disaster before I began this project. We could never find anything and mail was constantly getting misplaced. Now we have a great system where everything is properly labeled and no more paper is cluttering the tops of the counters. Here's the scheme:

Left Cabinet
Top-4 empty bins waiting for me to put something in them (I am sure it won't take me long, lol)
Bottom-Cookbooks for planning meals

Middle Cabinet
Top-1)Video Camera bin, 2)iPod bin, 3)Software bin, 4)Paint Chip bin
Bottom-More cookbooks and our candy dish (this keeps little hands from stealing candy when no one is looking)

Right Cabinet
Top-1)Votives/Tealights bin, 2)Yankee Candle Tart bin
Second Shelf-1)Dymo Labelmaker bin, 2)Battery bin
Third Shelf-1)Checkbook bin, 2)Notecard bin
Bottom-1)Envelopes (orange box), 2)Postage Stamps/Address Labels (small orange box), 3)Receipt box (open bin)

Built-in Slots (you can't see it but each one is properly labeled with clear labels)
Top Paper Slot-Notebooks/Notepads, Clipboard
Bottom Paper Slot-Meal Planning Paperwork (weekly plan worksheets, Schwan's catalogs, milkman order forms, etc.)
Left Mail Slot-Clayton's Inbox
Middle Mail Slot-My Inbox
Right Mail Slot-Outgoing Mail

Desk Area
Back Wall-Magnetic/Dry Erase Board with 1 clip for each of us and also some days of the week ones
Left Wall-Corkboard (not shown-I just taped up the weekly food plan until I bought the board)
Desktop-Old Coffee Tin (holds loose change), Monthly Calendar, iPod Docking Station, Pen Holder, Paper Shredder (I have got to get a prettier trash bin for it)

Under Desk
File Box-This contains pretty much all of our stray paperwork (vacation stuff, medical forms, insurance, 401K, decorating ideas, school info., landscaping plans, etc.). Almost everything goes in here for safekeeping with the exception of store/restaurant coupons, take-out menus, tax returns and owner manuals (I will explain how I organized those later).

Main Drawer-Phone Books, Directories, Small Notepads, Tape, Glue, Paperclips, Business Cards, Bon Jovi Tickets (Ha, just had to point that one out, lol), etc.

Top Drawer-Haven't figured that one out just yet.

Middle Drawer-Grocery Coupon Inserts

Bottom Drawer-Kid Stuff (crayons, markers, coloring books, etc.)

Watch for Part 2 tomorrow. ;)