Kitchen Organization

Alrighty, I'm here to present to you this week's big project: organizing the kitchen.

Before you read further, I'm going to kindly ask you not to judge. I was lost in a messy and unorganized kitchen and I couldn't find my way out. The "before" images you're about to see are not pretty - they are shameful. :) I will even tell you that, during this process, an item or two was discovered that I did not know I owned.

Anyway, this is how it all went down...

This all began with a trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond and then The Container Store in search of magnetic hooks. Most of the reason for the space issues in one of my drawers was because of my many sets of measuring cups. But, I will argue that I need that many sets. Anyway... that's all I was planning to get, but I ended up at The Container Store in all its glory and a big ol' project was brought to life. It only took two evenings, and only took that long because I didn't have a plan going into it. The entire plan was formed at The Container Store without any measurements of my pantry or drawers. Once I got the first load home and started placing things, I had some things I needed to exchange for others, etc.

I went back the next day with my list, got everything I needed and finished it up that night.

We'll start with drawer one, the silverware drawer. First of all, it was pink. I got it when I first moved out on my own. As you can see, it just wasn't working.

Check out this beauty.... everything has a place! I like to keep the smaller spoons and forks closest to the front for easy access for Jacob as well as those are the utensils I usually prefer myself. For the right side, I couldn't decide between the few knifes that aren't on the knife block and the serving utensils... as my friend, Leslie (Better Together), pointed out, serving utensils were best since Jacob gets in this drawer pretty often.

One more picture after I found these adorable corn on the cob holders...

Drawer number two... pretty shameful. In fact, if you look through some of my pictures in other places on the blog (and maybe some that haven't been posted yet), you'll see that this drawer is generally open. Why? Because it couldn't close. Bad, I know...

A disaster!
Ugh.
And look at this! "New" items found & so pretty!
Oooooh. Aaaaah.
Drawer number three, the worst part. Why? Because I only have three drawers in my tiny kitchen and I wasn't even utilizing this one. This drawer had become my "junk drawer," the catch all for all of the stuff I didn't want to find another place for: instruction manuals, sandwich bags, batteries, etc. So wasteful of precious space!
But now! Drawer number two can close because we have an entire new drawer. Check out its organized beauty.
It's kind of my "baking" utensil drawer. And I love the little square full of tooth picks - keeping them handy is super helpful.
Lastly, we've got the pantry. It was a disaster.


But, with the help of some Elfa from The Container Store, it's now super organized. Elfa is a little on the pricey side, but I made the small investment because 1. it's on sale (30% off) right now and 2. it's so great. It can be moved so easily to my next place and utilized anywhere if I have tons of kitchen space (which I'm hoping for) and personalized any way I want it. Amazing!

The entire pantry is so much better now.

So that is my wonderful, "new" kitchen. All of the drawer organizers are the Rubbermaid ones that kind of latch together. They range in price from $1-2.50. The pantry was redone with Elfa from The Container Store. I got the 78" rod with five narrow shallow baskets and two narrow deep baskets. There was a much larger selection had I not needed "narrow," but my pantry door is tiny.

The "new" kitchen has been put to use quite a bit with... homemade bread, new sugar cookies and icing as well as one of my favorite dinners, poppy seed chicken. Lots of fun blogs coming this week!