Whole Home Organization: Kitchen Clutter

I finally did it. I’ve had something on my home to-do list for more than three years, and it’s finally done! Three years, people. Ridiculous, especially when you see how freakin’ simple this thing was. But we’ll get to that.

If you’ve been following along since first of the year, we (that’s you & I) have been working our way through the Whole Home Organization process, one space at a time. Last month I introduced you to the Whole Home Organization plan and gave you a bunch of free printables, and I also tackled my attic.

This month, I decided to work on my kitchen. It tends to become a catch-all for all the family stuff since it’s the most heavily trafficked area in the home. I cleaned & organized kitchen cabinets, countertops, and the pantry, and it looks great!

I have the world’s smallest kitchen in a residential home. It’s teeny tiny. What you see in that image up there is it. Well, there is an oven on the right with two squares of counter space, but that’s it. That’s the entire floor space.

Crazy, right? I have to keep it organized or things can go downhill quickly. I’ve learned over the years to find ways to maximize my existing space, but what it all boils down to is getting rid of the unnecessary crap.

Let’s start with the countertops.

This ledge is where my sweet husband drops his keys, wallet, and our mail everyday. It’s also usually home to medicines, receipts, things that are either on their way to another room in the house or back out to the car….you get the idea.

I clear it off every single day and it drives me nuts.

I recently decided to move my office out of the eat-in kitchen area and into my craft room so I can have more space, so now this area can be home to all the crap that normally accumulates on the kitchen counter.

I moved my husband’s cigar box to the desk, which holds his wallet, keys, etc. It’s also now a dedicated place for me to sit down and make our weekly meal plan and grocery list. No more counter clutter! Mail can get dropped on the desk for me to sort through and it won’t be in the way.

Now let me show you the cabinets on the side of the kitchen over the stove.

Ugh. There was crap on top of the cabinets, dishes in the cabinets were unorganized, and there were so many random spices and stuff in the middle cabinet that I never could find anything.

I started with the middle cabinet, throwing out anything that was expired (pretty much everything) and organizing the rest.

See? Got rid of so much stuff! I moved my big casserole dish from above the cabinets to inside them. My recipe box now has a home, and I only keep the cooking stuff that I actually use.

The cabinets to the left and right of the microwave just needed a bit of rearranging.

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Bowls I use when cooking are on the left and dishes we use for eating are on the right.

The countertop and cabinets by the fridge are what I call our “drink station”.

That was code for “all the cups and glasses get thrown in here”.

I got rid of all the plastic cups we didn’t use, and took out all of the big travel cups, relocating them to a bin in the closet. I also finally went ahead and threw away the lids to the mason jars because we only drink out of them at home, so we don’t need the lids.

A certain little miss in our house turned 14 on Monday and we gifted her a K-cup coffee maker, so I had to pull out my coffee cups and give them a home. This space is now officially a drink station:

Coffee cups, “nice” glasses, large & small mason jars, Tervis tumblers and wine glasses are all organized. And on the counter, I have my huge sugar container for my sweet iced tea, Mark’s blender for his smoothies, and Marley’s new coffee maker.

The pantry needed some serious cleaning, too. We have a pretty sizable pantry (thankfully, since our kitchen is miniscule), but that also means we sometimes cram stuff in there for lack of a better place to put things.

The biggest issue was that top shelf up there, so I got rid of a bunch of stuff I never used and organized the rest.

Then I tackled the food. Expired food was trashed, multiple packages of other food was combined, and I cleaned out my big box of baking supplies, too. (I found 2 bags of confectioner’s sugar, 2 boxes of brown sugar, 1 bag of pecans, 1 bag of chocolate chips, and 1 package of chocolate frosting…all unopened and never used.)

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It’s not super drastic, but it’s so much more organized. And there are now zones for everything. Easier to keep things organized.

Now, for my crowning glory, my pride and joy…my silverware drawer! I have had this plastic silverware divider in the drawer since we bought our house almost four years ago, and I’ve hated it since Day 1.

Well, the plastic divider is NO MORE! Behold…

I can’t even begin to tell you how happy this makes me.

I used the same cute liner paper as I used in my other cabinets, then measured, cut, and glued (with Gorilla wood glue) 3″ pine wood strips into the drawer. It took my husband and I about an hour total.

It took me almost four years to do something that only took an hour to finish. What is wrong with me??

But, it’s done, and it’s awesome, and the entire kitchen is so friendly and clean and organized. And it’s organized in such a way that the family & I should have no problems keeping it this way!

For more in the Whole Home Organization series, check out these posts:

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YOUR TURN:

What space are you working on this month?