Friday, February 22, 2008

Organizing my Kitchen...


...was well overdue!



But thanks to Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie, I have gotten a jump start at it! I organized three cabinets, and this weekend, I'm planning on organizing the pantry and my cookbooks.

I have before and after pictures to share, too. They are blurry, but ... I still wanted to share them, because I have a friend out there (or two, or sixty) that mentioned at one time that she felt like she couldn't "measure up" to many of the bloggers out there that looked like they had their personal lives in 100% order. The thought of that just makes me snort. Loudly. Because I can't measure up either. So, I wanted to show y'all that not everyone has their homes in 100% perfect order. Please hide the children's eyes so they aren't frightened. Just kidding. Sort of.

Speaking of organizing, Laura does a fantabulous job at making you feel like a "normal person" and really encourages you to just roll your sleeves up and dig in and start to organize a wee bit here, and a wee bit there... I highly encourage you to join her monthly organizing challenge, and start with a little bit here, a little bit there... and soon ... you'll be caught up! (Just wait until you see pictures of my bedroom!!!! it's such a mess with piles everywhere!)

The first cabinet I cleaned out still had baby formula, bottles, and baby food in it. Hunter's 2 years old, and hasn't eaten that stuff for almost 18 months -- pitiful. In fact, most of it expired in 2006!!! I had snacks piled in, baking dishes shoved in, vases, and a ton of other stuff in there. I placed all the snacks in a large plastic container, and stacked all the serving dishes and pie plates. I know it still looks crowded, but it's not. It is much, MUCH better.

The second cabinet I cleaned out was my container cabinet. They were all just shoved in there, and the lids were too. It was a terrible mess. I took an old plastic Longaberger protector (pretty big) that was chipped, and re-purposed it for most of my lids. The, I stacked all "like" containers together (round with round, square with square). Then, the top shelf had some mugs that were just shoved in, so I organized them. Again, it still looks crazy, but it is much, much better now.

Finally, I organized the cabinet that contains some other baking dishes. Again... things were just thrown in. Are you sensing a theme here? Throw it in, close the door, and forgetaboutit. Sad, but true. Now the dishes are all stacked neatly. Please ignore the sagging shelf. That's a project for another day. I also took all of my kitchenaid attachments out of this cabinet, and placed them all in a wire basket in the first cabinet (since I had more room once I tossed expired baby food!).

So there you have it. My life -- a chaotic mess! Sorry the pictures are so bad... dark, blurry, yucky.




























































More AFTER pictures:

14 comments:

Donnetta said...

I need to tackle my kitchen *ahem*... actually my house... too. All of this talk of people doing it is helping to inspire me to go get it done!

GREAT WORK!

Susanne said...

Well how inspiring are you on this Friday morn. And here I was planning on doing absolutely nothing on my Saturday. ;v)

I've got my appliance cupboard organized out, now I need to get to the pantry cupboards. I'm almost afraid! And my bedroom? I was thinking just yesterday it really is shameful!

Jennifer said...

Looks GREAT! I'm finally doing some clearing and organizing of my own and it feels wonderful! I LOVE having an organized house but am usually too tired or busy to do it.

Laura said...

Girlfriend, you have no idea how excited I am to come here and read words like organize, repurpose and containers! You've done a great job, I'm doing the happy dance for you!

Now tell me didn't you think that was just a little bit of fun? LOL

Tammy and Parker said...

Bee*U*TI*FUL

Now come and do mine. :)

Tammy and Parker

Sandy said...

Good job, girl. How about reorganizing my whole kitchen - as in "gutting" it? LOL. I'd keep it more organized if I was more motivated. But I have to agree with you - Laura's site is so helpful. Love that girl, too!
Happy Weekend.

Anonymous said...

Nicey! I just did our kitchen yesterday. Great fun, ain't it?!

Why doesn't your picture show your eyes? Just curious.

Amanda

Lovely Rita said...

You're so brave posting pics. I may have to do that too, though, just to stay motivated to "get 'er done." BTW, how're you doing?

Anonymous said...

That looks great! Good job!!

mom2triplets04 said...

Looks great. Congratulations on making top 12.

Jena Webber said...

Very nice job. It's inspiring.

Brenners said...

You done good. :~) (Bad grammar intended.) I think I will join Laura's round ups. I wish I had gotten in on the kitchen, but that's alright. I'll back to it, eventually. I started reorganizing it last summer, then got sidetracked. It's still only half done. :~)

Anonymous said...

Hey, I won't judge about the baby food, I found prenatal vitamins on top of my fridge and my son is two as well! :D
Good job with the tackle. =)

Ter said...

Looks great!
Congratulations on making it to the top 12! :)