Organizing Your Kitchen Cupboards

It's Thursday again! And time for more organizing...:)

If you are just joining us, we have been getting organized using Jennifer Ford Berry's Organize Now book.

It has some great info and tips on organizing various parts of our life and home. You can see past posts here:

Week 1 about Organizing Your Mind and Life Vision HERE,

Week 2 about Organizing Your Priorities HERE,

Week 3 about Organizing Your Schedule HERE

Week 4 about Organizing Your Cleaning Schedule HERE.

Week 5 about Organizing Your Personal Information HERE. 

Week 6 about Organizing Your Finances HERE. 

      Week 7 about Organizing Your Bill-paying System HERE.

        Week 8 about Organizing Your Receipts and Taxes HERE. 

Week 9 about Organizing Your Files HERE

                               Week 10 about Organizing your Magazines and Newspapers HERE.
                                               Week 11 about Organizing Your Email HERE
                                                Week 12 about Organizing Your Mail HERE
                                         Week 13 about Organizing Your Child's Toys HERE.

Week 14 about Organizing Your Crafts HERE.

Week 15 about Organizing Your Photographs HERE.

Week 16 about Organizing Your Purse or Wallet HERE. 

 Week 17 about Organizing Your Vehicle HERE.

                                                  Week 18 about Organizing Your Pet HERE.

Week 19 about Organizing Your Books, CDs and DVDs HERE.

Week 20 about Organizing Your Entryway or Mudroom HERE.

                           Week 21 about Organizing Your Family Room or Living Room HERE.

Week 22 about Organizing Your Kitchen Countertops HERE.

Before I get into the organizing part, I have a correction from my gardening post I put up last week. My dear husband corrected me in saying that he has not used fertilizer in the garden this year. Sorry about the mistake:)

 

Today we are working on another part of the kitchen - the cupboards! Are yours neat and organized or are they a mess? Usually they are one or the other, right? We worked on our cupboards over the holidays last year. (inspired to do so by this book of course:) We really had a lot of items that we were just not using. So we took out a lot of appliances that we didn't use, extra cups, bowls, etc and donated them to Goodwill. It felt awesome to free up more space!

Here is a before picture of our glass and cup cupboard.

And here is the after picture. We probably have too many glasses yet, but it is much better then it was.

And here is another before picture of the cupboard under our island. It has a lot of big space, which is why so many big appliances end up there. 

Warning: it is a mess!!! lol

 And here is the after picture. So much better, isn't it? We got rid of  the appliances that we weren't using. I figure that if I hadn't used it in a year, maybe someone else could. It freed a lot of space.

 We also got rid of a lot of tupperware and replaced it with pyrex. We like the glass containers a lot better. It is easy to see what is in them, easy to reheat food without worrying about BPA in plastic, easier to keep clean and it seems to store so much nicer in the cupboard. 

This Week's Goals:

1. Take out everything from your cupboards. Get rid of all items that you do not use. For seasonal items that you use once a year, consider storing them in a different place such as a closet, basement or the garage. Donate or throw away things like broken dishes, mismatched dishes (less to wash!), extra coffee mugs, etc.

2.  Reorganize the remaining items that you regularly use. ie - keep cooking items like pots and pans near the stove. Keep dishes and utensils near the dishwasher or sink. Keep foil, plastic wrap, etc near the refrigerator...

3. Tackle the junk drawers! Use only one and throw most of it out. (still working on this here:)

4. Get rid of spices that are more then 3 years old. If you can't smell it, then it is not good! You can read more about how I organized my spices in this post.

5. Clear out under the sink. We used to have so many cleaning products locked up there. Now we only have three safe ones that clean our entire house and we don't have to lock them up anymore! You can read about how we did that HERE.

Tips:

If you lack space, hang as much as you can. Jennifer suggests hanging pots and pans, coffee mugs, bulky utensils on the back of the pantry door, etc. We use the back of our pantry door for our  supplements. :)

That does it for another week of organizing. How is your journey going so far? How do you keep your cupboards organized?

Next week we will tackle the pantry!

For more tips on organizing, please read the Organize Now book.

Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful day!

Rebecca