Finally Recess
Time to sit back and have a cup of coffee

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Kitchen Reoranization

I have been working on reorganizing the function of my kitchen cabinets during the month of February. I was inspired by Laura at Organizing Junkie. If you haven't visited her website, take the time to do so, she is very inspirational and has some great ideas.

I actually finished last weekend, but am just now getting around to posting. Luckily I can still enter her contest until tomorrow night.

I had a few goals in mind when I started: pans by the stove, a cabinet for Caitlyn's sippy cups, bowls and plates, and to put all like containers together. I feel I have achieved this goal. Also putting Caitlyn's things at her level has helped tremendously. She can get her things ready for dinner, lunch, breakfast and snack and she now unloads her dishes from the dishwasher every time. I also got Brent's bottles organized and off the counter. Probably the last important thing I did was find a home in the cabinet for the bread. This is great for our bread cost (our labs have recently decided to eat full packages off the counter tops after years) but the dogs are quite sad. It only took 3 times for us to figure out we needed to find a better home for the bread.

Here are the before and after pictures! I am posting twice today, so check out about Camp Write a Lot below too.

Oh yea, Brent had his first raisin yesterday. Caitlyn was very generous. I noticed him choking and swooped him up. Then he was fine. Then I noticed that he was gumming something so I did a sweep of his mouth and sure nough there it was, his first raisin. So I had to remind her again, that we do not feed Brent. So tonight she got him two containers of baby food, a bib and spoon when I put him in the high chair. Now that's a much better choice!!!! Gotta be tough around here.

Before:

After:
Made a spot for the bread, organized the spices, and put measuring cups in a basket here to keep away from Caitlyn.

Before: Caitlyn's cabinet

After:
This cabinet is working so well, the back shelf is for extra things I need for Brent.

Before:

After:
Moved Brent's bottle's into cabinet and moved Caitlyn's plates and bowls from this cabinet. This gives me much more space.

Before:

After:
I moved my pans to another cabinet by the stove and put all my storage containers together. I can cook and store in some of them,but I always forgot this because they were tucked in a different cabinet.

Before: Appliance Nightmare

After:
Now this cabinet stores only the appliances I use on a regular basis. My other appliances are at the back of different cabinets. I also used a brick, covered in a cloth to help store by serving platters horizontally.


Before: Used to hold serving dishes

After:
Cabinet by oven, that now stores pots and pans

Before:


After:
I actually have room to grow in this cabinet!!!


So there is not a before and after of my pantry. I had reorganized it a while back. But the container on the floor holds my chips and I love the shoe rack on the door. It is great for holding small envelopes and opened packages of crackers, etc.

And here is proof that I can clean my kitchen. I did keep my bags out on the counter to keep a "normal" effect though.

Check out our center workspace for Brent. He loves to be in the middle of all the action. We are planning to paint the walls green this week. I can't wait to see it completed.

I don't know if I will win the contest but I do know that I am so ecstatic to have my kitchen reorganized and it works for me! Thanks for inspiring me to do it this month. The deadline of one month really helped.

8 comments:

  1. Congrats! The cabinets look beautiful! Lot of hard work.

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  2. Wow! You worked hard. It looks great, I LOVE before and after photos!!!!
    Good luck.

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  3. You're my hero! Your kitchen cabinets are gorgeous! I'm suddenly inspired.. Thanks for the good info & links.

    Juanita

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  4. Get that Pampered Chef food chopper out of the box :)

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  5. Very nicely done!!

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  6. I love how you used the shoe organizer for your pantry. I saw one while shopping this weekend, and I was trying to think of other ways I could use it. I'll definitely have to go back & buy it now. Thanks for the idea!

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  7. great job! You did a lot of work!

    Very nifty idea with the organizer in the pantry... love it!

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  8. Looks great!
    Congratulations on making it to the top 12! Keep up the good work!

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