Tidying Up: Organizing Your Kitchen

If you are like me, your New Years Resolution always includes something like "purge unused items", "clean out the basement", or "actually move all the furniture to clean behind and below it". This year, thanks to Tidying Up on Netflix, I am going to try to tackle these types of chores not only to satisfy a resolution, but to see if I can find the joy that Marie Kondo speaks of. I know one thing, any tidying up with bring immense joy to my neat freak husband!

Thanks to the best Christmas gift ever - an electric insert for our fireplace - we started the year rearranging the living room. This amazing remote controlled fire is super easy to install (just plug it in!) and no venting or gas lines are required. 

We previously has a horrible layout in the room because we had three couches thanks to two of them not fitting down the steps to our basement. Once those were sold, it freed up a ton of space. Then we sadly realized that Buffy's vision has deteriorated to the point of not being able to see the neighborhood dogs walking outside anymore. This allowed us to move her favorite chair away from the window. Now we have a cozy room with a fireplace that isn't blocked by the TV. If that doesn't spark joy, I don't know what does!

 

Confession: I am not a person that feels joy at a completely tidy house. I happen to like a certain amount of stuff "messing up" the pristine emptiness that Ms. Kondo and others prize. I happen to like my little dancing flower on the window sill thank you very much. So I'm going to give you some ideas on how you can realistically wrangle the stuff in your kitchen that is causing you problems.

First priority is all those darn mismatched plastic containers that seem to multiply in the darkness of the cupboard...except for the lids. They must end up in the same place as all of the missing socks! When we moved I tossed all my yucky containers and bought several sets of glass storage containers with snap-on lids. Seriously worth every penny! They nest together or you can store them stacked with the lids on. If you want plastic containers (especially good for folks with kiddos) this 28 piece set from OXO is amazing. 

If you want to do one thing to make your life better in 2019 that is cheap and easy, this is it! Every time I need to grab a container or put them away, I wonder why it took me so long to do this. 

Another "why didn't I buy this sooner" item is this handy spice drawer. Most of my spice containers fit perfectly in it and it's easy to find what you are looking for. 

I put the ones that don't fit in a lazy susan for easy access - one for savory items and one for those that are baking related.

Another thing that I struggled with wrangling is all of our tea. We LOVE tea and have a million different kinds. My favorite way to store them is in clear stackable boxes. If you don't have a ton of tea like we do, this three drawer box is cute enough to keep out on the counter.

If you are like me, you have a junk drawer for all those miscellaneous items like pens, tape, note pads, rubber bands, etc. And we all know how fast that drawer can get out of control! These drawer organizers really help! They make it easy to group like things together and to keep things from bring buried.

Another fantastic addition to the kitchen is this sleek container to store and dispense all of your accumulated grocery store bags.

Finally, we ditched all of our travel mugs except for the two we use every day and a couple spares that we store in the basement for those rare times we forget our mug at work or a guest needs to use one. 

Taking these small steps will definitely make one of the busiest rooms a little less chaotic. What are your kitchen organization hacks? Do you swear by any products that help you stay organized? Please share in the comments because I still have a long way to go to be KonMari ready. :)