Keeping It All Together – Room by Room
A couple of weeks ago, I started a series on decluttering and organizing your home “room by room” and we started with the master bedroom. Since I am working through a pantry challenge, it seems appropriate for me to declutter and organize my kitchen next. Right now, I have a couple appliances on the counter that I’d like to see go into the pantry; I try to only keep out those small appliances that are used daily, like the coffee maker. My pantry has gotten so full, that my Bosch mixer and the toaster are on the counter taking up LOTS of room, but I hope to get these items back into storage soon.
Just recently, I went through every single cabinet looking for items that had expiration dates on them and I threw away whatever was out of date. I also restocked my spice rack as I knew some of them were way too old. You can check the age of your McCormick spices at their website. The Sauer spice site offers some basic information on noting the freshness of herbs and spices as well. So, if you know you have old spices, now is the time for “out with the old and in with the new.”
Next, it’s time to declutter and organize everything behind closed doors. It’s so easy to let these areas get messy because nothing is visible once the doors are shut! I actually try to organize these areas every 2-3 months. I pull EVERYTHING out of each cabinet and wipe the inside clean. Then I go through everything and organize it as I put it all back. I look for containers without lids and lids without containers and I get rid of these items that I cannot use anymore. I take note of utensils and cookware that is needing to be replaced (like cookie sheets or muffin tins – they really only last so long!). Items that need replacing make great gift ideas for my birthday or Christmas. I couldn’t believe it, but I actually have FOUR 9 x 13 glass pans … yikes! I’m not sure why I have that many, but I do have the storage space for them. So, I’ll hang onto them and give each of my children one when they get their own place.
Now that the cabinets are cleaned out and organized, it’s time to go through those extra areas - under the sink, the dish towel and pot holder drawer, on top of the fridge, the junk drawer, etc. Again, pull everything out, clean and go through each item as you decide what stays and what goes. I will be working on these extra areas this week as I noticed this weekend that it’s time for a clean out, especially the junk drawer. It’s amazing what ends up there! This is a picture underneath my sink – it may not look that messy, but you can’t see all that is behind that front row of items!
As you declutter this room, you need to be VERY honest about whether you truly need all of the items you have stored here. If you find you only use an item several times a year, you have several choices – store it elsewhere, give it to someone who could use it or place in a pile to sell on eBay or in a yard sale. I have several items that I only use during the holidays (like the gravy boat and large platters). I am not going to get rid of them, but I do store them in other areas in my home. I try to have only my heavily-used items in the kitchen itself.
Once the decluttering and reorganization is done, clean all of the surfaces - the outside of the cabinets, the microwave, the counters, mop the floor, etc. and you will have tackled one of the biggest cleaning jobs in your home! Won’t it feel just great to complete this task and have everything at your fingertips again? Then, just do a quick monthly cleaning and this task will never overwhelm you again.
Being physically challenged, I can’t do a big de-clutter all at one time, so I would tend to put things off indefinitely. One January first, in a whirlwind of New Year’s dreams of a clean home, I went through the house and wrote down each “zone.” Schoolroom: closet: top shelf, bottom shelf, floor. Schoolroom bookshelf 1: top, top shelf, shelf 2, shelf 3, shelf 4, shelf 5. I wrote down each place something could sit. I figured out exactly how many of these zones there were in my house and calculated a timeframe. I plugged it all into my computer’s calendar program so it prints each day with the chore charts and menus.
So yesterday, for instance, I took everything off that top schoolroom closet shelf before 10AM. That’s all. Just took it off. Set it all on the floor and walked away. Before making lunch, I sorted it all: Goodwill, trash, return to shelf. And walked away. After our schoolday was done, I wiped down the shelf and walked away. Before starting dinner, I put the returns back on the shelf and walked away. When I went down to kiss the girls goodnight, I boxed up the Goodwill and threw out the trash. There. That shelf is done and I won’t do it again for a whole year.
Taken in small bites like this, I can physicall handle decluttering one zone a day and finish with a whole room in one month. Just so happens the 12 rooms in my house each have 30 or fewer zones, so it works out that I’m decluttering the whole house once a year. I know it would make some people crazy to walk away from a mess, but for me, it’s either break the job in tiny chunks or forget doing it!
We are remodeling our kitchen. My carpenter friend who’s building my cabinets is adding some special “little” touches. He’s putting in full drawers instead of lower cabinets, leaving a upper cabinet open for cookbooks, and, my favorite, he’s making a drawers under the cabinets behind the kickboards! I will have five 5″ deep almost 3′x3′ drawers for things like cookie sheets, my cast iron griddle, or those heavy stone pans. I am so excited to reorganize my new kitchen.