Recipe to Remove Small Kitchen Frustrations

This post was generously written by professional organizer Lea Schneider owner of Organize Right Now, LLC. Lea works in Pensecola, Fl and writes a fabulous blog. Feel free to reach out to her if you could use some help organizing!

It was a recipe for frustration.

Take four children under the age of six; add two parents, occasional babysitters, grandmothers, a kitchen without enough cabinet space and an economy not conducive to home remodeling. Mix it all together and it spells chaos. That’s when my phone rang.

The mission was to see if I could create more space in a modern kitchen with limited storage. I can tell you that it is a real challenge in newer homes. Since they are designed with an open concept, it becomes very difficult as overhead cabinets are often eliminated in favor of a view.

As a professional organizer, I often deal with too-much-stuff in too-little space. Most often, we spend our time dealing with the too-much-stuff part of the job by making good decisions about what to keep. But what if you’ve already eliminated the clutter and you really need to keep what is left? That’s sums up this organizing adventure.

I have to say that making enough space for this large family to really cook and enjoy family meals was made possible by three things:
1.    They were open to new ways to organize the kitchen.
2.    There was under-utilized laundry room storage.
3.    My very favorite organizing product, Rubbermaid Slide ‘n Stack Sliding Baskets, fit the space perfectly!

In the adjacent laundry room, we cleared built-in lower cabinets of their typical laundry room clutter. Out went the citronella candles, dog biscuits, flower vases, assorted light bulbs and miscellaneous cleaning products. The usable items went to new suitable homes.

Rubbermaid’s Slide N Stack Sliding Baskets were quickly installed in the cabinets that you once needed to sit on the floor with a flashlight to access. Now, everything stored was easily at their fingertips. 

Frequently used food items, such as snacks and breakfast cereals, were left in the small pantry in the kitchen. All of the dinner ingredients, such as rice and pastas, were moved to the baskets in the laundry room. Labels made it quick to find what was needed.

Not only did the baskets add a tremendous volume of space to the kitchen, it made grocery shopping easier. It is simple to see if more rice or soups are needed or if plenty are on hand.

Under the Sink. An Unplanned Makeover.

I had a friend visit.  Not a welcome one.  A four legged cheese-loving friend.  I noticed the evidence one day as I looked under my sink for a microfiber rag for cleaning. 

It isn't the first time. I have had experience before and knew what to do.  To deal with it, I started by boxing up anything food related into our totes so it didn't tempt him. 

Then I started to clean up.  While doing so, I realized I should organize under there better.

First, I took everything out (sorry, i didn't shoot a before photo for obvious reasons!).  I actually found the place where I think the little rascal got in and I sealed it up.  I deep cleaned the cabinet.

Then, I grouped it by category - dish washing stuff, outdoor/plant/fertilizer stuff, special surface stuff, hardwood cleaner, tools, and trash bags: 

 

Next, I took Slide and Stack baskets and organized the groupings, back under the cabinet:

 

Much better.  Maybe it was a "blessing in disguise" to get this area organized.  Or at least, as long as he doesn't come back I'll call it that!

Pantry for One, Anyone?

I recently wrote a guest post for lonelygourmet.com. However, it was so great I decided to post it here also. AND GUESS WHAT? The post was so great I was invited to their radio show Foodie Fridays on Friday May 14th at 7 pm EST. So join in :)

For while now I have been talking to Laurie (aka @lonelygourmet) on Twitter. We have something in common. Most of the time we are both cooking for one. Laurie gives great advice via Twitter and her web site for singles cooking for themselves.

Like Laurie, I have gotten TIRED and SICK of going out to eat and microwaving frozen meals. I have started to cook more often and testing out recipes. However, I feel like I am never prepared; I don’t know what basics I should have in my pantry. The other day, I finally asked Laurie what she would recommend that I stock my pantry with!

Here is what she gave me (that I slightly changed it to fit my needs):
 
Laurie’s List:   

•    Flour               
•    Sugar
•    Oatmeal
•    Rice
•    Cereal
•    Spaghetti/noodles
•    Chips
•    Cat/dog food
•    Coffee/tea
•    Miscellaneous pre-mixed seasoning packets (taco seasoning, gravy packet, etc)

Spices:
•    Minced onions
•    Garlic
•    Salt
•    Pepper
•    Italian Seasoning
•    Poultry Seasoning
•    Pumpkin Pie Spice 

I then decided to give Laurie some advice about how one would go about organizing all these supplies in their pantry! The first step is to put those supplies that come in awkward bags in canisters – Modular Canisters that take up less room in your pantry. Also, LABEL!!! Baking soda and baking powder look very similar so pull out a Sharpie or label maker and label (with expiration date).

 Next is group like items together on your shelves. I have all my baking supplies on one shelf (high up because I do not bake as often as I cook), all my tea and coffee together (lower shelf because I use these everyday and it’s easy to reach), all my chips/snacks together, etc.

 

If you have wire shelves in your pantry like me, here is a suggestion. Your spices and packets probably fall over and tumble between the wires. I put the packets into an extra Modular Canister I had with the lid off and the spices into a TakeAlongs container I had (lid off on this one too). That way they do not topple over. Plus with my spices, I can grab them all at once and use what I need without multiple trips to the pantry. 

        

        
Now with my pantry stocked and organized I am ready to cook more often! What tips do you have for pantry necessities and organization?                                                  

How I Handle Junk Drawers: Containerize!

Yes, I said drawerS. Plural. We have several. Some drawers don't qualify as "junk," but I use the same method for them all: containerize. I found the word "containerizing" on this blog, and had to give her props. (Thanks Laura!) Her post about establishing limits and boundaries is what it's all about for me. I hate looking through a bunch of little things (pen caps, chapstick, bandaids, nails, screws, hairties, chip clips, etc) trying to find one other little thing. 

My bathroom drawer is probably the largest and has the most stuff in it. Just about every inch is containerized. Some of the "sections" include: headbands, hairties (neutral colors), hairties (fun colors), barrettes/bobby pins, chapstick/lip gloss/extra mascara, eye liner/makeup brushes, eye shadow, pens/pencils/misc, and it leaves enough space in the corner for my notepads (that I use to write reminders to myself all the time!). Can you imagine if all of this stuff was just in a drawer all mixed together?

We also have a couple junk drawers in the kitchen. Our drawers aren't very big, so we have ended up with two. Once again, the boundaries are the savior that keep things in their proper place.

 
In another bathroom drawer, I use a cut down bandaid box as a container. It upholds the boundaries, and it's a great way to reuse the box. It holds my nail polish (top/right corner). Any old boxes will work - cereal boxes, granola bar boxes, etc - just trim them down to the right height and they are ready to containerize!

I think the most important thing is to put things together that make sense for you so you can find what you need. For example: one cubby for rogue nails/screws/nuts/bolts; another cubby for hairties/barettes/clips. It's however it makes sense to YOU. As long as you sort everything out (tossing what should go in the garbage), organize the items, and then (the key) be good about putting things back in their correct place, your junk drawer will keep your junk organized. 

I found this other story about a junk drawer, and it made me laugh...Katherine of Raising Five ended up organizing her junk drawer (a.k.a. the "no-no drawer" in her house) after she couldn't find a spare key. She also addresses the question of "what does your junk drawer say about you?" I found that quite interesting.

How do YOU handle - or better yet - conquer - your junk drawer(s)?

Modular Canisters Make Me Happy

I recently re-did my "baking cabinet" because we had new and improved modular canisters launch! 

The current situation was okay but not optimal:
Pros #1: Decent space
Con #1:  I couldn't see what was in the back.  For instance, I had to take down the front small canisters to reach the big flour and sugar ones in the back (which just so happen to be commonly used). 
Con #2:  The jumbling on the bottom wasn't well organized.  I have glass front cabinets so I like it to be a little neater than this.  Also, the Crystal Light containers kept tumbling out.

Since the new modular canisters launched, I'd been wanting to try them out.  My process was:

Step #1:  I took everything in the middle out.  
Step #2:  I put the ingredients in new modular canisters
Step #3:  I took the Crystal Light out of its package, and put it in the little pull out drawer.  For more on the drawer, see my previous post on how much I love these too.

And...ta-da!  Big improvement!  The new canisters are short but deep, so I can see ALL my ingredients now.  I started putting little food storage containers on top of them as well for the  ingredients I have only small quantities of. :

 

I also labeled them with my Dymo label maker.  That step was helpful so that I could tell things apart.  For instance, the Troyer's pancake mix looks the same as the wheat flour.  The cornstarch looks similar to the powdered sugar. This helps me quickly grab what I need to bake.

Overall, I am impressed with the design of the new canisters and how they helped me organize baking supplies.

Knives organized at last!!

I have been dealing with my knife drawer for a long time.  I'm always afraid I'm going to cut myself trying to get a knife out of the drawer.  A lot of them are over a foot long and regular cutlery or silverware trays are not long enough to hold them. 

Then I got the Rubbermaid No Slip Interlocking Drawer Organizer...and VOILA!!!   I arranged them by alternating the handles so I was able to get more in there and also keep them standing on edge to make it easier to pull them out.  Adding the wider tray allows me to add other cooking utensils as well.

There you go. A simple project that made my life easier...and safer!!!

 

Kitchen Cabinets: Paint by Number (kind of)

Even though our kitchen cabinets were in decent shape, we wanted to change the color. Here is the "before" shot:

 

We were not going to spend the money to buy new cabinets, so our options were painting or staining. Although our original plan was to stain the cabinets darker, we quickly changed our plan to painting them once we realized the inner shelves and "skeleton" of the cabinets was made of particleboard, (which can yield inconsistent results if trying to match them to a stain from what I read online). I will give props to Eric (husband) because the organization piece of this story was all his idea. To my pleasant surprise, I got home one day to find all of the doors and drawers not only off of the cabinets, but laid out and numbered! 

 

He used tape to number each door and each drawer with a number. Then he drew a diagram so he knew which door/drawer went in which spot in the kitchen. I thought, "Wouldn't we know where it goes just from what shape and size it is....and memory?" but evidently he had found (and read) that this was the way to go to ensure that you put your kitchen back together correctly. Makes sense, right?

 
 

 

Here are the drawers laid out in the living room before we moved them to the garage. You can see a small dark square on the side of the drawer above (on the white side). That is the piece of tape and there was a number on each piece of tape. Once he got them all numbered, we laid them out in the garage for priming and painting. 

After laying them in order, we put the piece of tape on the 2x4 that was under/next to each door. We had to make sure that if we picked up a door that we put it back in the right place by its rightful number. The picture below - primed and ready for paint!

 

The biggest pain was taping off all of the cabinets. It was worth it to not have to worry about being careful on the edges, but it took some time! (All that blue is the painter's tape...and sorry about the blurry photo...)

 

When talking to a pro at a paint store, he suggested using a paint sprayer to paint the doors/drawers. He said to have someone do it for us or to get a sprayer at a local home store. We took his advice and bought one, and it proved to be an excellent investment for this project! I have no doubt we will have plenty of other projects where it will come in handy. (In the photo below the paint holster is not attached yet...)

 

After the doors and drawers were painted, we put our newly-painted kitchen back together, with the help of our numbers and diagram, and also added new hardware. It makes a huge difference - and now I can't wait to save up for new countertops to match our cabinets! 

 
 
 

 
  
 

  

Quick Tip for Freezer Organization

We were having issues finding things, especially meat, in our freezer.  We did one quick and easy thing and it has helped us easily access our frozen meats.  We placed this large Rubbermaid container in the freezer and all of our meat is placed in here. 

 

It has really helped us quickly find and grab small items from the freezer.  It’s also helped us at grocery shopping time – we glance in there and know how much ground meat or chicken we need to pick up.

Do you have any other quick tips for organizing the freezer?

Here are a few tips I found from a professional organizer:
http://studio5.ksl.com/index.php?nid=59&sid=8540284

Here is a great site from the USDA on how to safely freeze different foods:
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/FactSheets/Focus_On_Freezing/index.asp

My Messy Baby - Tip 1

Last month my wife and I welcomed our first child into our lives. Along with all of our happiness, joy, and excitement, quickly came confusion. While we had the nursery set, crib in place and drawers packed to the brim with diapers, we had no idea how to take care of a newborn. Since parenthood is a work in progress, I will be periodically posting new tips and tricks that I come across in our new adventure. By blogging this series, I hope that it will help a new parent get those extra couple minutes of precious sleep.

One of the biggest things that we noticed after birth is that our boy can EAT! We're pretty sure that he is going to be a competitive eating champion by the age of six. With him being on a steady routine of eating every 2 hours, our house had become a wasteland of baby bottles. Now, for those of you that have had children, you know that a hungry baby doesn't have much patience. We'd wash them as we used them and try and keep up with his hunger but with the chaos came confusion. Which bottle was clean, which ones were dirty? Clean bottles ended up being washed again out of fear of contamination. My wife and I needed to get more efficient, fast.

After doing some research online, I stumbled on an article that was posted on baby toolkit. Adrienne had some really great ideas that we quickly put into place. We purchased two bottle brushes, one for the kitchen, and one for the upstairs bathroom. We also thought that it may be easier if we had two separate places to store the dirty and the clean bottles. We purchased a green bin for dirty bottles and a clear bin for clean bottles.

Instead of washing one bottle at a time as needed, we could now grab the entire bin of dirty bottles, take them down to the kitchen and sterilize them all at once in a pot of boiling water. The bottle brush still works great for cleaning one at a time but I highly recommend cleaning bottles in bulk. The best thing about it is that you can do it from the living room while watching TV. After reading an article on buzzle about sterilizing bottles we are now saving ourselves approximately 20 minutes of cleaning every day. For some additional tips on sterilizing baby bottles in bulk check out this article on buzzle.

With the help of friends and family, a little online research, and a lot of patience, we're starting to get the hang of things...

Pantry Sorrows - Part One

I really like where I live. The only thing that consistently drives me crazy is - THE PANTRY!

My roommates and I have a small kitchen but the pantry is actually a pretty good size. There's just some things that need to change.

1. The shelving is ridiculous! Things keep falling through the wires and falling over. Oh why contractors do you put wire shelving in a pantry?

This is a picture of bottles falling through the wires!

2. There's a pipe that sticks out in the pantry. The means in the middle of one shelf (my shelf to be exact) the shelving is cut out and you can't use a good portion of the shelf.

3. There's no rhyme or reason for what goes where (okay there is a small bit but not enough).

Random food stacked together

All the shelves - I have to confess the bottom (and the worst shelf) is mine :(

We are planning a full gutting out of the pantry and a fresh start. However, I do not know where to go after we rip out the shelves. All I know is we need a place for the dog food and recyclables bag. Any suggestions or words of advice?