Just Call Me Martha Stacey

So week two of the Organizing Revolution over at A Bowl Full of Lemons is tackling the kitchen.  I’m not going to lie, I was a little hesitant over this one.

My kitchen hasn’t been touched (beyond daily cleaning such as dishes and wiping the counters) since Munchkin#2 was born.  Between coming home with a new baby and the whirlwind of activity that was Christmas, deep cleaning or organizing the kitchen wasn’t really my top priority.

I didn’t really have faith in my ability to get the entire kitchen organized this week so I only snapped a few “before” pictures before I got to work during nap time.

I got on a roll, though and ended up organizing all but two of my kitchen cabinets…the snack cabinet and the cabinet above the fridge that only holds stuff we rarely use.

I moved my cookie sheets and cooling racks into the cabinet underneath the sink, taking advantage of the long, narrow space.  They work much better in here, instead of sliding out of a precarious stack and ending up on the floor when I try to get to the one at the bottom of the pile.

The pantry cabinet is WAY more functional now that everything is labeled and has a specific home.  However, I realized quickly that the round white baskets aren’t exactly the most efficient use of space.  Diaper wipe refill boxes fit much better and give me more space to store pantry goods, so I’ll be replacing the baskets over time as we buy more wipes (with a new baby, that will be easy!).  I have a project up my sleeve to make them look a little more appealing that will be featured on an upcoming Mini Project Monday.

I love that I can see all my baking dishes now and know exactly where everything fits properly.  I plan to make labels to hold myself (and maybe hubby 🙂 ) accountable when putting away the dishes.

I can see everything in my baking cabinet now as well…and better yet, won’t start making a recipe only to find that I am out of an ingredient, or three!

No more falling appliances!  Everything in the small appliances cabinet is accessible without risking bodily harm to myself.

My counters are clear!  Love it!  Now, I just have to figure out what to do with the box of “stuff that doesn’t belong here but I don’t know where to put it”.  The white bucket to the right of the sink is for holding overflow dishes once the dishwasher is full because I HATE dirty dishes everywhere…now to get hubby to use it!

Today, I tackled the third bedroom in our house.  And I won.  Finally!

Every since we moved in over three years ago, this room has been relegated to storage room status.  Everything that didn’t have a designated place (and a few things that did) ended up in this room.  I don’t think very many of our friends and family have actually seen this room…since the door is always closed when company is over.

I have tried several times to corral the mess in the third bedroom and have failed each time.  But because we’re hoping to move our munchkin down into this room in the next few months, I was determined to win.

I didn’t get a before picture, but that’s probably a good thing.  The after picture is no less exciting!

It hasn’t looked this clean since the day we closed on the house sale.  The closet has a few things inside and the old bed is still there, but the room is pretty much ready to be painted next week!
In the process of cleaning out the bedroom, I had to figure out how to condense most of our office supplies into one small filing cabinet drawer in the basement.  The desk is now part of my scrapbooking area and I needed more space for my supplies, so all the pens, pencils, post-it notes and other miscellaneous office things were organized into some pretty containers and stored in the drawer.  The papers and such now take up residence in a large IKEA Branas basket.

I have the most awful time trying to keep my little munchkin’s closet clutter-free.  The last time it was neat and tidy was before he was born a long time ago!

His closet is overrun by clothes that are too big, clothes that are too small…my wedding dress too!  We also were storing several garbage bags worth of hand-me-downs from friends of ours because I was previously too lazy to sort through them.

Last week, I finally buckled down and sorted through all the clothes, storing away the ones munchkin has grown out of (old diaper boxes work great for this!) and hanging up a lot of the donated clothes.  Thankfully, he hadn’t grown out of many of them yet!  My wedding dress remains there just because we don’t have room for it in our master closet and because munchkin isn’t at a stage where he can do much damage to it…yet (I’d better knock on wood now that I’ve said that!).

Eventually, I want to put in more shelving but there are MANY more projects that need to be tackled first…the list is too long to share.  Something I want to do soon is make some hanger signs to indicate the clothing sizes…there’s so many different size ranges that we have right now, waiting for munchkin to grow more and I’d love to be able to pick a shirt without having to search for the right size.  But for now, I’m happy with how the closet looks…finally!

…but until then, I make do with a little computer work, plain white paper, scrapbook paper and packing tape.

Packing tape is awesome.

Sorry, just had to say it.

Anyways, I’ve been frustrated with one of my bottom kitchen cabinets…specifically the one that holds our assortment of food storage containers.  We have plastic and glass ones of all different sizes and shapes.  Here is the before:

I decided to finally break down and organize instead of dealing with the dysfunction any longer.  I pulled everything out and got rid of a few things that didn’t belong…who needs epsom salts in the kitchen?

I grouped all the like containers together and things that I don’t use often (roasting pan, glass drink dispensing canister) still got shoved to the back of the cabinet.  Everything else  was sorted and labelled as it went back into the cabinet.  Much better, right?

I’m hoping the labels will help hubby when he unloads the dishwasher for me…I’ll have to wait and see!