Sunday, January 25, 2015

Organization Challenge Kitchen Week Wrap-Up


This was my first week with the A Bowl Full of Lemons Organization Challenge and it was quite the introduction.

Do you have any idea how much STUFF you have in your kitchen? Here's how you get a real, hit yourself over the head idea of it: Walk thru your kitchen and open EVERY drawer. EVERY cabinet. ALL of them.  Now imagine taking every last thing out of all of those drawers and cabinets. I'm talking down to AND INCLUDING the shelf lining out. Pretend you put it it all in a pile... THAT'S how much shit you have.

This challenge calls for you to empty all storage spaces and stack everything on the kitchen table and sort. Well, I must have a tiny kitchen table because as I was doing my glassware cabinet I realized that I have a shit ton of glasses, more plastic bar cups than necessary, and a ton of (very necessary) coffee cups. I decided to work in phases going cabinet by cabinet instead of the mass dumping of crap. It was a good idea too.  It took me a few days to complete the kitchen.  I do understand the value of taking everything out at once, but with E2 and E3 around, plus the dogs... uh uh no way.

I really wish I had taken more before pictures. However, I'd probably be too embarrassed to post them so I suppose it doesn't matter anyway.

Without getting too wordy, here is my Week 1: Kitchen

You won't see major differences in my overall look. Thankfully with a lot of help from Husband Dearest, our home is kept tidy.

Kitchen Before:

Kitchen After:

The biggest changes were decluterring on the sink side counter. Here's a couple hot spot places:
Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Major strides in the actual organizing were behind the cabinet doors. Woof were things a mess. I don't have before pictures for most things, but here's how it looked as I worked along.

Under sink before and after:
I hung the recommended command strips for my scrub brushes, taking them out of the sink. Also, a caddy versus a disorganized bin makes a huge difference. Only the Sassy Spray was left out, as that's not a cleaner. Unless you have the sassy mouth of a four year old. It will clean that right up.


In Progress:
My purging was rather successful. Most of the fridge and over half of my spices were old and yucky. 


Spices and Baking supplies:

Medicine Mess:
The stackable bins and spice rack were found a Wally World. I was able to separate up medicine by preventative, sickys, kids, and prescription which we only have a couple of.


Glassware:
Obviously the most important one. OBVIOUSLY.

FRIDGE!!
The good old fridge needed purging and scrubbing. Also, I did go to the grocery store to restock before my hungry super fast BMX kid got home from Nationals. 


This whole week I spent at least and hour each day, and a few days several hours, working on getting things organized. Starting tomorrow I get to tackle the laundry room. I have a small laundry space that doubles as a garage entrance so it's going to need some work. I also have a ton of sewing to do for an outstanding order for my Etsy shop. Hopefully I can have that wrapped up and out Tuesday.
I also revamped some kitchen decorating. My favorite items are the three (was four- one broke. Boo!) recipes of my late Grandma's that I have displayed.




Tell me, did you do anything to organize your home this week?





2 comments:

Dawn said...

Looks great Courtney! I cleaned out my master bath cabinets and drawers. I filled 3 kitchen size garbage bags with with crap, crap and old makeup that I'm not sure why I was saving. I cleaned up my spice drawer as well. I'm wanting to get this house organized but feel I need to be organized to get organized. Hahaha, I'll have to check out "Bowl Full of Lemons" to see if that will help.

Courtney Staton said...

Sounds like you're off to a great start for sure! I'm stalling and still haven't started week two stuff. My excuse is I've been working at night. Looks like it's going to be a cold dreary weekend to get it done though!