Organized Home Challenge: Week Four

      So I just completed another fun challenge as part of Home Storage Solution's "52 Weeks to An Organized Home." Last week we had to clean out and organize the fridge and freezer. It is actually something that we desperately needed to do. (Though Tim would have told you that "it's not that bad.") Don't judge me by my "before" picture. And also, don't judge me by my food choices. 

No specific home for anything. 

Organized Home Challenge: Week Three

     This was by far the hardest week so far of the Organized Home Challenge: Pantry, spice cabinet and food storage areas. We don't have a lot of room in our kitchen for storing food so space is at a minimum. And you can put all your food in as many cute labeled containers as you like, but if you don't have the room for them, then you don't have the room for them and there's nothing you can do to expand the space. We basically have three food storage areas: the spice cabinet, one set of cabinets in the kitchen for canned goods and other small packaged food items, and one shelf in our shelving unit in the laundry room for bulk items and larger packaged food items. 
      I have found three main benefits to having those areas better organized since completing the challenge. 


                  1. Using clear storage allows me to quickly see what we have stocked so that I  don't buy more of what I already have and can better plan my menus around those items.
                 2. Using sealed storage containers will keep our food fresher for longer.
                 3. Only buying what I have room to store will hopefully prevent me from spending more at the grocery store than we need to.


     I began the challenge for this week by pulling everything out of my spice cabinet and throwing away all the expired spices. (If they said Publix on them, then that was a hint that they were old!) Then I divided the cabinet's three shelves based on type of spices: cooking spices, baking spices, and grilling spice/sauces and bulk spices. I put the smaller bottles of cooking spices on the bottom shelf in a plastic tray so that I can pull that out and easily find what I am looking for without having to dig through the shelf and knock all the bottles over while doing it. I am really happy with the results and I didn't have to buy anything. I considered buying a spice rack, but decided that I didn't want to have that cluttering up the counters. 
     The next spot that I tackled was the cabinet in the kitchen. Mainly I decided the bottom shelf would be used for canned goods and taller items and the second would be for everything else. The top shelf holds our toaster and some oatmeal. It looks much better just by organizing it like that and now I can see what I have most of the time and can hopefully finally use up all the pasta in my cabinets.
     Lastly, I organized the shelf in the laundry room. I pulled out all my unused clear plastic storage containers and purchased a few more at Target to better organize my bulk cooking and baking products like flour, sugar, rice, and pasta. I put everything on my kitchen island and then matched up the food with the containers based on how big the container would need to be to hold all of the food. After that, I found some free labels at Better Homes and Gardens, edited them in Photoshop, printed them out, and then adhered them to my containers.

Pretty cute, huh?

Here is my "before" spice cabinet.

I pretty much just put stuff wherever it fit.

Our "before" food cabinet just had things stuffed in there haphazardly.

Our food shelf in the pantry was the same way. Oh the shame.

And here are the "afters."

Three clear areas - cooking, baking, and grilling and bulk spices - make it easy to find things.

Not really organized, but certain foods have a specific place now and I consolidated some of the pasta to make some more space too. At least now I can see what I have pretty easily.

I added these labels because I thought they were cute, but now that I have a million powdery white things in containers, it's actually pretty necessary.

The finished pantry. Baby formula and food, bread, onions and potatoes a stored on the left and all of my containerized food is on the right in two rows so that I can see them easily. The small containers are too small for most things so I use them for Owen's snacks.

We also have canisters on the counter, but I've found that even the largest one is too small for things like flour and sugar so instead I use them for random other things like tea bags. And the most important one is the one with all our favorite southern sauces.

     Next up for the Organized Home Challenge, I will be organizing my freezer and refrigerator. I'm not too worried about the freezer because there isn't much in there, but the fridge is a bit of a mess. Plus I have apparently inherited my mother's tendency to have half a million half bottles of marinades, sauces, jarred things, and more in my fridge door. But hopefully I can find a good way to get everything organized and pick out specific places in the fridge where certain things will always be kept to create some order in there. Wish me luck!

Organized Home Challenge: Week Two

     Week Two of the Organized Home Challenge was about organizing your kitchen cabinets and drawers. Most of my cabinets are in good order so I chose just three to work on: the glassware cabinet, the kitchen linens drawer, and the dreaded junk drawer.
      All of these three drawers and cabinets needed to have the old, unused, or dirty items removed and what was left organized. Here are my photos of the befores and afters.

BEFORE. Unlike things being kept together, bottles that we don't use anymore, and too many coffee mugs and thermoses.

AFTER. Just by trashing the old bottles and then organizing items based on type, it looks so much better! Also, I realized we have quite a few wine glasses for people who rarely drink wine. But they're pretty!

BEFORE. My kitchen linens drawer had too much crammed in there and a lot of the dish towels and washcloths were old and stained.

AFTER. Old dishtowels were relegated to the rag bag and the clean ones and new washcloths were folded to better organize the drawer.

       And the most shameful drawer in my kitchen... the junk drawer. Before, it was just stuffed with everything imaginable. Paperwork, instruction booklets and warranties, phonebooks, address book, batteries, pens, stamps, tape dispensers, coupon books, flashlights, candles (both birthday and otherwise), and more.

BEFORE. Cram it in as best you can was the only rule.

     So I waited until Owen's nap time and then I dumped everything from the junk drawer out onto my kitchen island. I began sorting, putting similar useful things together and trashing anything we didn't need like expired coupons and empty ink pens. I found a large zip top bag and used that to keep our appliance instruction manuals and warranties together and stored that in our important documents file box. That cleared out a lot of space in the junk drawer. I purchased two acrylic organizers from Target for about $8 and used those to organize everything that was left over. Now all the batteries for Owen's toys are kept together by type, stamps and envelopes are kept in the same place as my address book, and office supplies have a home. 

Dumped on the counter, all the mess seemed hopelessly daunting.  But I just slowly began sorting through it all.

AFTER. It's not a junk drawer anymore. It's a drawer with a purpose!

So much better.

     This past week I have really enjoyed participating in the Organized Home Challenge. It hasn't been too hard or time-consuming and the results have been awesome. Check back in next Monday to see my results from Week Three after I tackle our food storage areas. Wait until you see the before picture of my "pantry." Eeep!

Organized Home Challenge: Week One

      One of my goals this year is to simplify and get the house organized and I've realized that I'm never going to be able to do it all at once. I'm following several organization blogs to help motivate me to keep going, but I found one blog, Home Storage Solutions 101, that is doing a 52 week challenge to organize your house.    

    While perusing Pinterest last week, I ran across a pin for the Organized Home Challenge and repinned it. I had previously bookmarked a 2012 Declutter Calendar, but that had a different chore for every day of the week and was a little more labor intensive than I personally have the time for. So when I saw the weekly challenge, I was intrigued. After checking it out, I realized that it was something that I could do. Each week focuses on a different area of the home to declutter. And thankfully, the kitchen is divided into at least four weeks. I had already missed one week and was starting halfway through the second week of the challenge, but I jumped right in and figured I could do my best and catch up on a later week if I needed to. 
     The first week's challenge was to declutter your kitchen countertops and sink area. The creator of the challenge had a lot of great tips for figuring out how to declutter that area. The first concept that she asked followers of the challenge to do was to think about what functions you want for that area. For me, the main function of my kitchen of course, was cooking. But I also wanted an area to serve as a place for incoming mail because it typically gets dumped on the kitchen island (a common dumping ground for random stuff). Then she asked that you take things off the counter based on how often you use them (daily, weekly, or less than that). She recommended only keeping out things that you use daily. For us that meant keeping things like cutting boards, the coffeemaker, and the dish drainer. But it nixed a few other things, including, sadly, my KitchenAid mixer. So I wrote it a "Dear John" letter and stashed it in my pantry since I use it only occasionally.
      Here are my "Before" pictures of what my kitchen typically looks like.

See the kitchen island where I do most of my food prep? Covered with random things like car keys and sunglasses, empty milk cartons, paperwork, and baby clothes.

The lefthand side of the stove generally stays uncluttered, but the right side was a mess. We hardly ever put away clean bottles and instead just pull them from the draining rack. The KitchenAid mixer took up a bunch of space and dirty dishes are typically stacked next to the sink.

Our sink area. Dirty dishes, too many mildew-y sponges, medications in the windowsill, and a framed meal planner that I got from a MOPS meeting, but have never used.

And the right side of the sink where there are lots of coffee accessories and Tim's dump bowl. And clean dishes that need to by put away.

      One thing that I removed from the kitchen was a bowl that Tim has commandeered as his catch-all for keys, chapstick, his wallet, coins, and anything and everything else that comes out of his pants' pockets. I hated the way it made the countertop look so cluttered so I moved it into our bedroom on the dresser. I also got rid of the medications that I kept in the kitchen windowsill. I stored them in the linen closet in our extra toiletries tote until I find a better way to store our medication. I also got rid of a framed menu planner that we made as part of our crafts portion of a MOPS meeting, but that I never used. Another change I made was to move our fruit bowl over to the corner where the KitchenAid mixer used to be. It made room for my new mail center. Tim used to keep a bag of Splenda next to the coffeemaker so I put a sugar bowl next to it to make it prettier. One thing that I can't wait to get rid of is our draining thing for baby bottles and our bottlewarmer. The drainer was really cute at the beginning, but I'm tired of having it on the counter. But because it is something we use everyday, for now it stays. 

      Anyway, just doing those few things has really opened up some kitchen space and made our kitchen look much less cluttered. That and being more diligent about keeping dishes clean and then putting them away afterwards, and it will look great!

     Here are my "After" pictures.

Much better!

No more spoon rest unless I need it... No more bottles left on the drainer for forever...

No more KitchenAid mixer...no more framed menu planner...

Goodbye medications and old sponges...

Adios Tim's catch-all bowl and Splenda bag and coffee.

     So there you have it! My first challenge completed! It was actually pretty easy because my kitchen is kind-of small and it wasn't too bad to start with. It took me about one naptime to complete this challenge. Stay tuned tomorrow to see my results from Week 2 and then I will be caught up and able to begin Week Three with everyone else who is doing the challenge. I plan to post my weekly challenge results on Mondays, which is the day that the challenge creator unveils her plan for the next week.