kitchen cupboards

2 weekends ago, while on the phone with my sister, I randomly decided to start reorganizing my kitchen cupboards.

It wasn't totally random I guess because they had been bothering me for awhile.  The random part was that I had not planned on doing anything about it any time soon.

I went to put something away and I just couldn't stand those messy shelves anymore.  I had had enough of keeping snacks in my linen closet, but candles in the kitchen.  It just didn't make sense.  I suddenly needed it to make sense!

I was just going to work on the one cupboard bothering me the most, but I really needed to rethink the whole system.

So, around 6 pm on Saturday night, I emptied all my kitchen cupboards.

(How can I ever expect to be more social and spend more time with people when I'd prefer to organize my kitchen?)

The next step was to go around the house and gather any containers that might be useful for corralling things (which always makes things look nicer).  When I went looking for containers I ended up doing some other slightly reorganizing in order to free the containers from their previous employment.

These are the things I found.  I didn't end up using 2 of them which worked out well because that meant they could go back to where they came from, but it was nice to have the option.  

The next part took a good 2 or 2.5 hours.  It can be so tempting to just put everything back where it was so you really have to stretch your mind to make yourself see things differently.  

In other words, my super smart brain is why I'm a good organizer.  

I thought about what really needed to be in the kitchen.  I got rid of some old, gross things and things that I didn't use at all.  I thought about what really bothered me the most and how often I used things.  

 The candle and vase collection (not pictured) ended up moving to a different closet where I had been keeping all the packaged snacks I take to school with me.  (I stocked up when I had a free membership at a big box store and there hadn't been room for it all in the kitchen.)

The gray basket on the top left is where my chips and granola bars are now. The woven basket is paper plates and plastic cups and bowls as well as a birthday banner and birthday candles.  The bottom shelf has the coffee maker, a basket of tea on the left side. 

(I considered getting rid of all my tea since I don't like tea and I never drink it. But the thing is, I WANT to like tea and I have this idea that someday I will, so obviously, I kept it.)  

My mom will like the spice section the best.  She did not like how they were crammed in a corner before and you couldn't find anything.  She would obviously notice this because she cooks at my apartment more than I do. (And she lives in Wisconsin!)  Now, when my mom needs spice she can easily pull down both boxes, find what she needs, and then pop the box back up on the shelf.  Yes, a spinning spice shelf would be more ideal, but it's much better than before.  

This is the cupboard above the washing machine.  I had always thought it would be nice to have the laundry supplies there because, well, doesn't it just make sense?  Annoyingly, my detergent does not fit on either shelf so it has to hid elsewhere, but in the aqua pan are the other things I use occasionally for laundry.  The dryer sheets are easily accessible right next to the pan.  And, of course, that sits next to a basket of sprinkles and food coloring.  Let's try not to think too hard about how much that makes sense.

My napkins, straws, dishrags and kitchen towels stayed in the same place on the shelf below.

In the pink basket there are small tupperware containers. On the shelf below are the bigger containers (some were in the dishwasher at that time).  In the white basket are boxes of ziploc bags, a box of "chip clips" and a box of reusable "hats" for leftovers.  They kind of look like mini shower caps.

Here we have cooking and baking supplies (minus the spices) and some canned food.  In the plastic containers on their sides are bags of rice, quinoa and other such things (safe from pantry bugs).

This cupboard has cereal (blue containers at the top), granola, oatmeal, peanuts, popcorn (in the white basket) and the little peanut butter packages I take to school with me, along with room for more food. (What do I eat every day?) The jar on the top right is empty. Empty! It has since been moved to the bathroom where it is filled with epsom salts.  (Did you know how good it is for you to bathe in epsom salts?)

This used to be my "junk" drawer (highly organized though), but it was really the only place it made the most spacial sense to keep those rolls of plastic wrap type things.  I thought long and hard (while stroking my chin) about what I really needed to have easily accessible in the kitchen. Batteries? Not so much. Random keys and membership cards to grocery stores? Nope.  Flashlight? Important, but could live elsewhere.  I did manage to keep my scissors, a pen, toothpicks, twisties and rubber bands in there.


Ahhh.  Don't you feel better now?

And did you notice that some of the cupboards seem to have extra space? That's the amazing thing about organizing.  Somehow, you magically have more space than you began with.  It's a lovely, lovely thing.

Ideally, all the containers in the cupboards would at least be the same color and they would all be labeled.  Something like this...

But...someday.

Oh! I almost forgot! Under the sink!

I was bothered by the fact that some cleaning supplies lived in another closet and some lived under the sink, so after moving out the laundry supplies, the rest of the cleaning supplies could move in.  (However, there is still a tension rod in another closet with all my spray bottles.)  It took awhile to get things fitting nicely in this tight space, but I feel MUCH better about it.  I could use 3M hooks to hang that basket on the door for my sponges, but for some reason I was worried about ruining the cabinets.  Um...the cabinets are like 50 years old and will most definitely be torn out when I move out, so I don't think I need to worry.


And that is the story of why I choose organizing over other Saturday night activities.