SIlverware Drawer mini challenge

Toni at ABFOL has challenged her followers to Mini Challenges, this is one of them!

Junk drawer mini challenge

I thought this was the end of the challenge until a few days later when I decided I needed more towel/napkin storage in the kitchen.
These are the 2 drawers I decided to work with. The ziplock drawer which had wasted space, and duplicate items that could live elsewhere, and the junk drawer.

I pulled the junk out of the junk drawer and moved the essential ziplocks, saran wrap, etc to the more shallow drawer,

and moved the junk drawer organizer into a funky cabinet that we do not access often. The few junk drawer items we access got moved to more accessible places. I think I will get some sort of organization system inside the cabinet door for things too but that will come. 

In the old ziplock drawer got kitchen towels/cloth napkins. 

Week 1, the Kitchen, fridge front declutter

I am going to be focusing on the kitchen this week with A Bowl Full Of Lemons for the first week of the Home Organization 101. 

First up, something simple and quiet because the family is sleeping in. 

This is a regular job, I have decluttered the fridge outsides many times before but I think it makes a great impact for small effort. 

I moved some note pads to the side you can't see because it doesn't add visual clutter on that side. I took down some old notes mail and stuff. I moved the play magnets to the front door with the others. I took some potholders down and put them in the kitchen linen drawer instead.
On the counter next to the fridge I moved a few big bottles of vitamins up into the spice cabinet, where there was plenty of room thanks to my pantry organization.

This week of kitchen organization should be fun thanks to A Bowl Full of Lemons!

Silverware Drawer mini challenge.

I've been so busy in my craft room/home office lately, so I didn't think I'd stop to do the silverware drawer mini challenge from A Bowl Full of Lemons but I did and I'm glad. My daughter can reach into the drawer, by putting her silverware up front, instead of the straws, she can get her own out. She had been grabbing at the straws before, searching blindly for a spoon.

I already had the little purple baskets.

ETA a few weeks later and Its working great! I did use some cut shorter straws to divide the baby silverware purple basket for spoons and forks, I just slid straws between the middle row  of holes in the basket to make a little wall.

Pantry Wall in Craft Room / Home Office

Our kitchen doesnt have a pantry, as it is at the end of the great room that is our loft. We decided to dedicate a wall in our home office (just off the living room) to pantry, extra pans, and chest freezer, as we do not have a garage.

We bought a great can organizer from Shelf Reliance, and so did my In-Laws. My husband put theirs together and it was literally a pain in his neck, so he put off putting ours together. The boxes the can rack were in got shoved in a corner and used as a surface for the last 3 years.

The biggest problem is that the home office has been a chaotic hot mess pretty much since we moved in. I have cleaned up parts of it but never got the room finished, and there was never room to assemble the rack to get it into place.

A few weeks ago, we invested in an Expedit shelf from IKEA for my daughter's toys in the living room, with that, I was able to move some things out of the office, and got inspired to do more and more.

First, I cleaned, without trying to organize, I just put things in the dresser, shelf, or box they belonged in and got the floor clean. As I cleaned I chose items to get rid of, to relocate and to trash. Eventually the room was clean enough to move things around and build the can rack!

So without further ado, Here are some pics.

This was before much cleaning. 

The black book case in the corner was dedicated for food until we finished the pantry wall. The food, as you can see, overflowed onto my husband's book shelf on the left and a misc book case on the right. (and all over the room, this pic shows after moving 2 shelves of books out to the Expedit, and putting food from around the room on those shelves for the time being)

This was after quite a bit of cleaning but no recent organization. 

I had donated a bag of WIC babyfood to the Stamp Out Hunger program when the postal carriers take food donations, but was able to box up another 2 bundles to take to the post office a few days later. 

The corned where the can rack would go had been cleaned up

We recently did some rearranging in our bedroom, which meant my husband's computer no longer fit, but a dresser across the room would, so we moved it out and moved the gift wrap dresser (above) over to where it was. 

We pulled the can rack out and Hubby, Ellie and I assembled it. 

Assembling the can rack required evaluating my cans, adding contact paper to the shelves, and getting a top cut to fit. (the top is an extra accessory you can buy but we just had plywood cut at The Home Depot.)

We moved it into place and filled it up!

Check out other products here. 

Here are some close-ups

On top are larger food items, cereal, chips and popcorn tub, cookies and crackers. Behind are a pan that I do use but rarely and a refillable water jug. 

The rack came with the perfect little magnet labels for the spots.

 Extra magnet labels are on the side of the freezer near by. (I do not expect them to stay so neat, my daughter loves magnets!)

The top shelf houses all my baking supplies. Much of it is in Tupperware I invested in years ago, some are in recycled containers and the polka dot bins are from the dollar tree. The only baking supplies not shown are my sprinkles, cookie cutters, colors etc which are up in my kitchen. 

See them most recently HERE or in an old post about this wall is HERE and another really old post about this wall Here

The bottom drawer holds all my larger appliances (I have an orange juicer, hand beater, and space for a toaster in a cabinet in my kitchen). My KitchenAid stand mixer and Kuerig stay on the counter.

The wire shelf that was on this wall had some purging done, relocating done and shifted over a bit to make room. (before picture above)

 I hung some Command hooks above the rack for my less often used hang-able pots. Here is a tip for you, check to be sure that the hook will fit inside the pan handle hole or you'll have one mis-matched hook for the smaller handle hole. Speaking of hooks, the can rack came with some hooks to hang items from the corners. I have lunch boxes hanging near the bottom. Neither of us work outside the home, but they are great for taking snacks for the day at the park.

Top shelf holds excess spices, sauces, and salad dressing.

The next shelf holds a bin for candy making stuff (melting bags, sticks, and small packages of candy melts) next to that, 2 pickle jars of candy melting disks and a shaker. on the far right is a bin of (mostly homemade) jams jellies and syrups

Below that is a bin of condiments (my daughter stole the label and my label maker died on my last label so that can wait), pasta and a bin of pasta sauces and more pasta. 

on these shelves are bins for drink powders, ziplocks/foil/saran wrap, and a bin of candy (which was purged through to get rid of anything we wont eat). Below that are more ziplocks (they were on sale!), some misc items and some casserole dishes.

The bottom row holds large cans, a pitcher and some baking pans, The white organizer holding them up is actually designed as a vertical shelf spice rack type thing. I had it from my old apartment 4 years ago (I hoard organizing tools). I zip-tied it to the shelf. 

On the floor are over-sized pans and some more cake pans. 

Next to the wire rack is my chest freezer. I wish I had a stand-up freezer, but this was a gift from someone who won it, so I am very grateful for it. I have organized it countless times, its a pain to keep organized if it is full. 

This is a "During" picture. That wire rack above the freezer was just tossed up there one day. I used to hang my clothes drying rack up there on a Command Hook when it wasnt used, but it is being used most of the time now that it has warmed up outside. The rack was a catch-all and didnt really sit right on the single command hook. I emptied it and took it down. 

After. 

The command hook now holds a picnic basket, and it bugs me slightly that the hook is off center since we had to shift the freezer to fit the can rack, but I digress. 

The blue shoe organizer on the back of the door in the picture above was decluttered also. It has always been a place to put things that dont really have a place, or that do not belong to me. I purged some things and found home for other things. 

After. Im not sure if this will stay here, or be relocated, we dont have closets or a bedroom door, so there arent other doors for it to hang on, I have an idea for another wall in this room. We will see. 

So I cant express on this blog how happy to finally have this finished! The bonus is I was able to pull some items from the kitchen that were better suited in here so I have some empty space in the kitchen to work with now! 

I cannot wait to show you the rest of the room as we finish it!

Looking up - Kelly's Kitchen Mission

Above my cabinets I have some baskets for storing the less often needed items, I have worked on this area before, It just needed a little purging and some labels, which I bought months ago.

I also wiped down all the cabinets up there that I could reach and the top of the microwave

I drawer/bag/shelf a day challenge day 1

FlyLady Baby Steps Start tomorrow.

I have done some of the baby steps already but not all and not consistantly. In my Flying group on Facebook, the admins are walking us through them again as a refresher. Click here for more information. I decided since the first step is to shine your sink, I got out of bed and went to shine mine, even though the kitchen is a wreck and I have party stuff to put away. Well when I got there, this is what I saw.

I had already shined it before I left for the party! I must be doing something right already!

The habit of the month for September is going to be the before bed routine, which is something I rarely do, since I dont have anywhere to go first thing in the morning, I dont feel its necessary to lay out clothes etc. This will be great for when school starts in 24 days though! So Im glad. Shining the sink is part of the BBR.

Each day this month I intend to participate in the baby step and keep up with previous steps. I will blog much of it!

Kitchen De-clutter Games day 1

In the kitchen on Day 1 of the FLYLady De-Clutter Games we de-cluttered the front of the fridge, I have kept it pretty clutter free since I cleaned up before. 

Some quick Befores:

After: 

Mostly I just straightened magnets and removed post-its that I can always remake if I need them again. 

Sticky Storage - Magnet Strips

When I organized my medicine cabinet like a year ago, I got an idea, there was some wasted space due to different sized toiletries. A magnet on the wall inside would hold the metal items nicely. I tried every magnet on my frigde to try and repurpose, all failed.

Then after organizing my spice cabinet, I started looking at magnetic spice racks. Over at Mod Podge Rocks  recently I saw she attached magnets to baby food jars to stick to the fridge. (We actually do Baby-Led-Solids AKA Baby-Led-Weaning, and do not feed Ellie baby food, she feeds herself real, whole foods, but we get baby food on WIC so I put mashed veggies and meat in soups and we eat the fruit.)

At heaven (Ikea) today I remembered the magnetic spice rack idea and looked around for a metal backing for magnetic jars I imagined exsisted. I found some magnetic knife holders instead. (they also come in fun colors)

I was pretty sure the baby food jar lids would stick, and at only $2.49 it was worth a shot, I'm sure I could use them in my craft room for scissors or to relocate knives or something. (they were small, so I bought 5)

Someone on FB tonight asked about bathroom storage and I re-read my medicine cabinet post and at the magnet on the wall part, I had an aha moment! Those little knife racks would work! So For $2.49ish + like 10 minutes (most of which were spent opening the package) I had a little more storage in my medicine cabinet, which is great because we have since added the baby's toothbrush holder in that space.

The back of the medicine cabinet is not real sturdy, so I couldn't screw the magnet in. I thought of my darling, command hooks strips.

Without the screw holes being used though, there was a lip in the back of the magnet. The Velcro picture hanging strips came to mind. They were perfect sized and filled in that lip.

I just stuck one side to the magnet and other to the wall, clickety click, we were installed!

Add the metal tools and tada! Extra space!


Before:
 
After

oh and I had to check, yes, baby food jar lids DO stick to the magnet, even through the packaging.

If I dont get to make my spice rack soon enough for you, check out Mod Podge Rocks, or Just Home Made, or The Little Apartment, who uses Goo Gone for that pesky lable glue that has been driving me nuts.

quick 34 min cleaning session

I was sitting on the couch on motheringdotcom and saw a forum about quick 10-15 minute clean ups, Ellie was in a good mood, so I put her in her Bumbo (best invention ever btw) and got to work, I was able to work for 34 minutes before she was done watching me.

the bathroom:

I hung the baby bath tub behind the door, where it is usually, the mesh insert has a little loop and it had been peed on, and wasnt back together after being cleaned. We dont actually use the tub for bathing, because she prefers to shower with us, but we lay her in it while we wash up, then reach out of the shower to get her, then put her back in it after we wash her up, she is usually quite content to lay in it all bundled in a towel while I dry off and stuff.

the plastic container box on the counter is for all the extra toothpastes and toothbrushes, i put a lable on it finally and put it in the bathroom cabinet.


The kitchen:

yes that is a toilet seat on my kitchen counter, that counter just attracts stuff like crazy! (its a new one, that has a toddler insert, better than an removable ring thingy) not even a year ago there was a toilet on that counter!
(during construction, 8/12/2010)

You can see that I decluttered the fridge again.

Ellie was done watching mommy clean house, and hungry so i fed her and put her down for a nap, had some lunch and now im going to tackle the rest of the house! except the office, that aint happening.

more updates to come, hopefully!