Challenge #3 - Kitchen Cabinets Part 1

Okay, so this challenge took me a bit longer than I intended, and a bit longer to write up than I anticipated... so I'm a bit late... but you forgive me, right?

Thanks. :)

To start... I have a small kitchen. I've had smaller, but usually with more cupboard space... at least this time I have a garage.

I've shown pictures of the kitchen before, but here's a refresher:

The sink side of the kitchen and the dining area.

The stove & fridge side of the kitchen. There is a cabinet above the microwave, and above the fridge.

In the spirit of full disclosure... my kitchen does not look this good right now. I haven't finished moving some of the decluttered items to the garage yet, and the counters are currently more cluttered than the cabinets... it happens. But this is approximately what it will look like again when I finish. Except that the crock-pot does not belong on the counter at all... but it is still there for now.

I think we'll start with the lower cabinets on this post. That includes most of the cookware and dishes. This first cabinet is the lower one closest to the kitchen table. This is where we store all our plates, bowls, cups and leftover containers, and most of our mixing bowls. Basically... it's the plastic cupboard. Everything is plastic because we have 6 very small children, and we store these low so the kids can help set the table and unload the dishwasher easier.

Before 

After

This cabinet didn't need too much work. I decided to donate the wooden lazy susan. We haven't used it in over two years, because it doesn't fit on our table, and now our kids have learned to help each other pass things around the table, so we don't need it as much. The salad spinner moved to a different cabinet. We still have the leftover containers on the top shelf (and several of them were being used when I took this pic), and the back corner still has four mixing bowls that nest pretty well, as well as our red plastic colander that we use for pasta & such.

Above the plates & cups is the utensil drawer. We've had problems with this drawer breaking ever since we moved in... so I need to fix it. When I took the before picture, we had just pulled everything out of the drawer and set it on the counter.

Before 

After

We decided to get rid of our old silverware and only keep one set. We had talked about doing this for a while, and just never got around to it. I just discovered last week that our local women's shelter was asking for silverware donations, so now seemed like the perfect time. The newly dejunked drawer now holds a basket of corn on the cob skewers, a basket of chip clips, the utensil caddy which holds 8 large spoons, 16 small spoons (that's what came with the set!), 8 large forks, 8 small forks, and 8 serrated knifes that don't belong with the set, but that we use for steaks & things. The other baskets hold my measuring spoons, the 8 dinner knives that came with the silverware set, two serving spoons (one slotted) and the ice cream scoop, my cheese knife and the vegetable peeler.

The next cabinet over is the large one under the sink. I totally forgot to take an after picture of this one, but here's the before. I didn't do much in here, and didn't get rid of anything... just straightened it. Here's where we keep extra garbage bags, dish soap, dishwasher detergent, foil, saran wrap, wax paper, freezer paper, and my cooktop cleaner.

Next to the under-sink cabinet is the dishwasher, then one more narrow cabinet between the dishwasher and the wall.

Before

After

This cabinet actually made me laugh. I took the before picture, then I pulled everything out to figure out what to dejunk, and realized I really had already cut back to my minimums... so the after picture looks nearly identical. I decided to pull everything out again and lay it out so you could more easily see what I have kept.

I have: one light baking sheet, two dark baking sheets (identical and stacked together), one mini-muffin pan, one ancient cupcake pan, one wire cooling rack, three cutting boards, and across the top, two pie tins and three loaf pans. You can probably tell from this how much I actually bake. :) The only other thing in the cabinet is the wire rack for my round baking stone, which for some reason doesn't fit in this cabinet.

Above this cabinet is a small drawer.

For some reason, I forgot to take an after picture of this drawer too. Here's where we keep all the baby bibs, and the extra sponges & kitchen rags.

That concludes the sink side of the lower cabinets.

On the stove/fridge side the first cabinet between the wall and the stove has a drawer above it too.

Here's the before picture... pretty sad. This drawer is supposed to hold the hot pads and the kitchen towels. Unfortunately, the kitchen towels are in the clean laundry pile that I am procrastinating getting to... so the drawer is currently empty. There was no point in taking an after picture. :)

Before 

Midway through.

This cabinet below the towel drawer took a bit longer, because it also ended up including extra things from elsewhere in the kitchen. Midway through you can see the round baking stone on the far left, the air-popper and popping corn at the back, and the blender in front.

This is a pile of stuff that I dejunked just from this one cabinet. The food chopper we just didn't use. The popcorn buckets we didn't end up liking (they held too much popcorn, spilled too easy, and were not easy for little hands to get popcorn out of). The KitchenAid attachment didn't come in as handy as I'd hoped. The tiny waffle iron has been replaced with a bigger, and more functional one, and the black plastic cover thing is for a cheese grater that we already got rid of because it broke.

Before 

After

Up next is the drawer to the right of the stove. This is our spatula drawer. I mentioned this drawer in a previous post, showing that it doesn't have to be perfectly organized. Unfortunately, the drawer was starting to break the 80% rule, and it was time to be purged. Most of the gadgets in this drawer are still used, but not on a regular basis. Anything that wouldn't be used at least once a month I moved to a plastic bin.

Then the plastic bin was put on the shelf of the previous cabinet.

After

The other things I put back into this cabinet are my rolling pin, and my KitchenAid mixer (the bowl for it was in the dishwasher at the time).

Before

After

Two more drawers to go! Under the spatula drawer we have two deeper drawers that I use to store my pots & sauce-pans. I decided to move the aprons out of this drawer, because they were just making things difficult. I had two spoon-rests on the bottom of the drawer and I asked my husband if we really needed them, since we hadn't used them in a while. He told me he had been looking for one because he wanted to use one, but hadn't known where it was... HA. My bad. So, we chose one spoon-rest, and donated the other. Now the drawer is uncluttered enough that he can find the spoon-rest. I also have a wok and a large pot, each with a lid, and a strainer.

This last drawer didn't need any decluttering or reorganizing. It has looked pretty much the same since we moved in a year and a half ago. I have two sauce pans, one deep, the other shallow. The shallow one also has the steamer in it, and a lid, the deep one has a lid along with a tinier sauce pan, with it's own lid. These pans only fit in this drawer in one way, and it's the only place in the kitchen I have to store them, so we just make sure they get put away where they belong every time.

I almost forgot the last space in the lower half of the kitchen. This is the drawer under the stove. It also didn't really have a before & after because I didn't have anything to get rid of from here. I have three frying pans, a red silicon vented pan cover (because my medium sized frying pan doesn't have a lid that fits it), and my waffle iron/griddle/sandwich maker.

Tomorrow I'll cover the upper cabinets!