This week we tackled the kitchen. A couple years ago, we took out a few cabinets in our kitchen to open the room up. All the cabinet doors were taken off along with it. We like the idea of open cabinets but since then we have never fully organized our kitchen. We never finished the kitchen as a whole either, so our kitchen is still in renovation mode.
The first thing I did this week was completely clear out all the top cabinets. I put everything on the dining room table. Quick tip: I precooked tonight’s dinner the day before, and having diner already/taken care of really comes in handy when doing this type of project!
Surprisingly, I was able to fit everything on my table. After clearing everything out, I gave all the shelves a good scrub. The first thing I put back was the things I know I needed/wanted to keep, like the plates, cups, and bowls. Anything questionable was kept out to go through with my husband once he came home (this was all within a half hour of him being home). I then moved on to the bottom cabinets and island. Here is everything I ended up parting with.
The kitchen island is what houses our pots and pans, junk drawer, coffee maker, and breads. I mainly threw things in the junk drawer when unexpected company was coming. I turned it into my coffee/ drawer. I am also using it as the designated oven mitt home. This was the best idea of the whole kitchen. It really helped clear off a lot of counter space and it’s conveniently right under our coffee machine. Here are the kitchen island’s before and after pictures:
We did toss out a lot of extra lids and along with a couple of containers. I did move all of our baggies, aluminium foil, and saran wrap onto the small shelf. Those things were kept in a basket under the kitchen island (now turned into bread basket). I was able to weed out a few things in the utensil drawer, not much though. Here is the only bottom cabinet in the kitchen.
Going through the utensils didn’t make a major difference. We don’t have much to begin with but here is a before and after.
Nothing has changed above the fridge but I thought I would share it since I am showing everything else. Nothing is in the top cabinets there. The slow cooker and toaster are the only small appliances (other than the coffee machine and microwave) that we have. Next to the fridge, I keep our spices in this cute little cabinet I found on clearance at Michael’s a few years ago.
Here is the kitchen as a whole.
I also worked on the dining room this week. The dining room was mainly cleaned up with a bit of reorganizing. I will say, as the weeks have gone by, it has become easier to find a home for things.
It was only a couple months ago that I went through everything in the dining room. I did a major clean in August when we started school. You can see here how nice things were. A couple month is how quickly “things” start piling up everywhere! A major sign I was not minimizing very much.
Above is my microwave area. The bakers rack was being used as a diaper station, which is my favorite use for it, but our new microwave is too large to have on a counter or above the oven. I keep baby food, baby bowls, and a couple of baby cups in the cheap dollar baskets above the microwave. I put two of my nicer bins on the bottom, one is for our reusable grocery bags and the other is the “throw junk in” box. I plan on going through this weekly to keep on top of the clutter. I think a couple of plants would look good on the top shelf.
The now minimized and cleaned dining room:
The school table is the “spot” in our home that gets the most clutter and quick! I am hoping that with this challenge it will help with this issue. Only time will tell, I guess. Maybe I should just ditch it, hmmm?
I have to say, this was the hardest week yet. There were so many times of feeling like giving up but after fully finishing my room, making sure I found a home for everything, and truly making intentional decisions, I was determined to go through it all. There are even more things that I am considering of letting go. I am surprised and proud of how much I have come along.
Thank you for baring with me in this long post and seeing our progress so far. Please check out the previous weeks:
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