Cabinet Organization: Check!

This week Love and Renovations put out a call to arms in the form of an Organize-a-Thon. The challenge involves organizing one area of your home each week left in February and then either post or e-mail her about it. A kind of support group for getting organized. I thought to myself, 'I could use this!'

So, here we are on week 1, and I have shiny, clean kitchen cabinets. Score!!

Now, I know this not the before and after that TV shows are made of, but for me, and especially Folksy Husband it's a nice step up. He nearly refused to ever go into the pots and pans shelf because he hated the deafening clanking that went on trying to get something, and forget about the tupperware shelf. When emptying the dishwasher he'd just leave the tuppers on the counter because of the potential plastic avalanche when putting them away.

Here's a closer look at the bottom cabinet. These are un-tampered with befores, people. I'm gettin' real:

Muuuuch better.  My process started with emptying the cabinets of everything but the food and coffee mugs. Oats helped.

Funny story, see those red-striped popcorn containers in the center of the photo above? Mike and I won them on a mystery theater train ride. All the passengers' names were in a hat, and the MC happened to ask each of us to pick a name out. I picked Mike's and he picked mine! Everyone on the train thought it was rigged! Good stuff. They went the way of the yard sale.

Anywho, I separated out the things that was yard-sale-bound and got to work putting stuff back. Very exciting. It was mostly trial and error, and I think the biggest help was the added space from getting rid of the unneeded. Oats did a little scouting work and gave me the all clear:

Here are a few post-organization snaps:

No more excuses to not put away tupperware!

Small electrics within an arm's reach.

The other horror I tackled was the top shelf of the middle cabinets that is filled with baking goods. Here are the contents before: lots of plastic bags, which are not exactly organization-friendly.

After putting most dry goods in other containers like mason jars and swing-top jars that were hidden in the bottom cabinets before (using stuff and making space, double bonus!) this is what I was working with:

And the baking goods back in their place:

So, now Folksy Husband has no excuse to not put tupperware away, I don't get hives thinking about what could be hidden in there. Win-win!

Next week, it's gonna be a craft-cabinet extravaganza. I'm a little nervous.

(p.s. Bar Cart is coming along, and this weekend is Bar-Cart-a-Palooza oh-twelve. Mike is really getting into tricking it out. There were mid-day brain storming texts, that's all I'm gonna say. ;) )

Everything Under the Kitchen Sink

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Remember how Monica on Friends was always SUPER organized, but had that one closet that was a hot mess? Yeah, I barely do too. Anyways, I had an under-the-sink equivalent of Monica's h-e-double hockey sticks hole closet. It looked like this:

Which from a higher angle looked like this:

and this:

Makes me itchy just looking at it. Mold, disorganization, a pile of empty sunflower seed shells; all of it was under there. Don't ask. And every time I wanted to grab something, I had to root around that nightmare of a cardboard box to find it. I had had enough and finally just emptied it out and figured if I took stuff out and put it back in, I'd at least know what was in there.

Well, of course, after everything was out, I got inspired to at try and improve the space a little. That mold in the back was enemy #A1. I know, I know, mold is dangerous. Please, don't let what I did diminish that fact. Anyways, I decided to let sleeping mold lie and painted over it. I figured the spores were better left in-tact and attached to the wall than airborne after of trying fruitlessly to scrub it clean. I got out the trusty Kilz II from the basement and painted right over it. I understand it may come back, but at least for now it's under a thick coat of primter. I painted the rest of the surfaces under there also, just to start out with a fresh coat on everything.

Then, I had to come to terms with what was going back in there. Little space, lots of bottles. I laid it all out so I could take stock and start to scheme how to put it all back so it wouldn't devolve into an abyss again.

So, what did I have under the sink?

• Big screw-top bottles


• Aerosol cans


• Spray bottles


• Trash bags


• Spools of aluminum foil and other misc. papers


• Rags and kitchen towels


• Emergency tea light candles


• Sponges


• Paper towels


• Brushes


• Trivia place mats. Once, when Mike and I first started dating, we spent a whole Friday night memorizing the presidents in order. I can't bear to get rid of them.

Conclusion? Mishmash. I really didn't know where to begin, so I took a look around the basement for inspiration. I found these old farm boxes (a blueberry and apple crate, I think) I bought off Craigslist when we first moved to PA. I committed to buy them and then realized they were about an hour and a half car ride away in rural New Jersey. Did you know New Jersey could even get its rural on? Trust me, it can.

I used two of the one on the left, and one of the type on the right. After fitting the jigsaw puzzle of goodies back into the cabinet, I was left with the spools of paper, paper towels, and spray bottles. For the spools, I hung the Ikea metal paper dispenser back up on the right side of the cabinet.

Paper towels got a custom job using these ingredients found in our Hoarders worthy mud room.

After marking out where the roll would hang,

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I screwed in an eyebolt on the right side,

and a hook on the left side.

No exact science here, totally eyed it.  It is on the back of a cabinet, after all. Then, I broke out the clothesline and tied one end to the eyebolt and measured to the hook, leaving a little slack so that a full roll could sit on the string without being too tight. I knotted a mini carabiner (from an eyeglasses screwdriver key chain) to the end. Voila! Feed the clothesline through the roll, hook, and grab a sheet.

The spray bottles were the last obstacle. There was an Ikea tea towel holder (I can't, for the life of me, find the official Ikea name for it) screwed on the right side door in the 'before' cabinets.

The holes serendipitously were the perfect diameter for hanging spray bottles. I added two more holes, for a total of five by drilling VERY carefully and slowly. This wood wasn't exactly industrial strength.

I wanted it hung up-and-out-of-the-way, which of course meant putting it where no screwdriver could fit. Mike was changing the oil in his car, and when he came back in to get something I lured him over with my endless DIY-in-sweatpants charm and made him hang it. He's much more patient with hanging things. He got out the smaller screwdriver and toenailed in two screws by going up through the holes made for the bottles and screwing into the cabinet side. Boy, I do love that man.

BOOM. Spray bottle caddy, love ya.

And here is the organized, non-panic inducing and sunflower seed-less after. I must have opened the cabinets to just stare at the organized bliss at least 12 times the day it was finished.

Attack 1 of the 2012 Organizing Monster is a sweeping success.