Kitchen Cabinet Organizing

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When we bought our house December 2000, the kitchen was still in the half-finished state it had been in for the previous nine years since my in-laws stopped working on remodeling it for health reasons. The floor was exposed wood because the previous flooring was no longer visible, having long since worn away. Some of the walls had wallpaper and some were still bare drywall. The wooden paneling, that was meant to cover ALL the walls on the lower half, was only installed behind the cabinets on one side of the room. The cabinets used to be new on the outside wall, but they were never quite the right fit for the wall, so there has always been a three-inch gap between the stove and the cabinet next to it on one side or the other. My in-laws also chose a lovely country blue colored countertop, but the blue has worn away in many places on the countertop that gets the most use. I wish I could say those issues have all been dealt with over the almost eighteen years we have lived here, but that just isn’t the case.

There is one wall of built-in cabinets that my in-laws lovingly refinished and those are the ones we will focus on for this decluttering session.

We did remove all the new cabinets and appliances so the floor could be put in and to our credit, we did choose ceramic tile for the flooring. We had the same tile put in the breakfast nook and half bath. So, the flooring issues were taken care of before we moved in. Someday, we are going to finish the kitchen so it will all be completed at the same time, but that will not likely be this year or even the next.

So, what do you do when things are beyond your control? You do what you can with what you have at this point in time. In this case, that means keeping it clean first and foremost. I can keep my counters as clear as possible and the sinks empty and cleaned. If you need to know how to clean your sink, FlyLady has a great tutorial on how to do that. (see the video below)

The next thing I did to reclaim my kitchen was to go through the cabinets, declutter them, reorganize them, and put them back in some semblance of order. When I first considered doing this it seemed overwhelming because I was thinking about the job as a whole. You know how they say to eat an elephant one bite at a time? Well, that is how you reclaim your kitchen, one drawer or cabinet shelf at a time.

I decided it might be beneficial for someone out reading this to see before and after photos of some of my drawers and cabinets, so here goes.

Sometimes, just taking everything out of a drawer and the wiping out all the dust and crumbs before putting everything back in neatly is all that is needed.

I decided the towels take up so much room that the extra dish sponges could be moved to the next drawer down where there was extra room.

Other times, you do that and find some of the things you took out of the cabinet don’t need to go back in.

You don’t really need to store the kiddie plates and cups in your cabinets when your kids are grown and moved out, especially when grandkids are not in the plan for the foreseeable future. Those things can either be boxed up, clearly labeled, and put in storage, or at the very least, relegated to a high cabinet out of the way until they are needed.

If there are dishes that belong to someone who no longer lives in the house, take pics and text them to the kid in question and ask if they want them or if you can get rid of them. Modern technology is great for this sort of thing. A picture is worth a thousand words and you can have an answer in minutes and move on. You can also get a box and put everything you no longer want in it and then when the kids stop by next time, tell them this stuff is up for grabs and will be donated if they don’t want them. I let anyone who comes by to go through the donate box and take anything they want. One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure, right?

When I went through the cabinet with all the canisters and baking supplies I was brutal and decided to get rid of things that were out of date or that I knew I wouldn’t be using anytime soon. I also decided that I wanted everything in a tightly sealed canister or glass jars. This served a couple of purposes. I had some quart-sized canning jars in deep storage that were just sitting there and this both put them to good use and saved my money because I didn’t have to buy anything new. It also made me feel totally confident when the ants that come every spring showed up that my food would be safely out of their reach. I can also see at a glance if I am getting low on an item stored in a jar. The picture above is the decluttered cabinet. Yes, I am guilty of attaching reference charts to the inside of the cabinet doors, but I always know where they are and nobody sees them when the doors are closed.

 

It felt great to wipe down all the shelves and I was so happy that my mother-in-law or my past self had taken the time to make sure every drawer and shelf was lined with washable vinyl flooring because this made it super easy to clean everything and get it dried and put back together quickly.

In case you were wondering, I sort my spices alphabetically with the small tins in the little shelf in the drop down because that is all that will fit there.

The rectangle container on the bottom shelf holds all our salad toppings so we can grab them all out with ease.

When I tackled the spice cabinet, I got rid of many duplicates and way out of date spices. Many of the things we used to store in the drop down section got moved into the pantry, so while the top cabinet and the row of spices in the bottom section look much better they aren’t nearly as impressive to me as the bottom shelf after the clean out. You can also see the vinyl flooring in this photos once the stuff was cleared off of it.

So, while the walls still need to be sanded, and prepped for painting, and my counter tops still have worn spots, every time I open a cabinet door or pull out a drawer and see the contents well organized and everything easy to locate because it is where it belongs, I smile because I know I did that. I made it easier to put up with the not-so-perfect kitchen and did my best to make it a clean and usable space under any circumstances. I know we will get to the rest eventually but because it is fully-functioning it is down the list from other rooms that are not, like the master bedroom.

The great thing is you can make progress on reclaiming your home one drawer or shelf at a time no matter how much time or help you do or don’t have to do it.

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