Basic Kitchen Organizing Part 11

Okay! Here we go! It is time to get all of those kitchen cabinets and drawers organized.

Before you pick up here, make sure you have the most difficult spaces already done. They include your pantry, under the sink, your junk drawer, and the cabinet that holds all of your leftover food containers. Once they are off your back, the rest of the cabinets do not seem so bad.

Have your kitchen station map handy. Take a magnet and stick it on the fridge so it will not get lost in the shuffle.

From this point we will all do the same steps but how you need to do them depends on how you answered all of the other planning questions.

My typical MO

Usually when I work on kitchen cabinets, I do the ones mentioned above first, then I start at one end of the room and work my way around to the other doing any islands last. I usually do upper cabinets, lower cabinets and then do the drawers. The kitchen needs to be straightened up so that the counters are clear and the sink is empty. Sometimes I un-decorate the kitchen first just to free up the workspace and keep the pretty things from getting mixed up with the rest. I fill the sink halfway with soapy water and maybe a cap full of bleach to clean as we go.

We open the first cabinet and pull everything out and clean the cabinet.
We go through all of the stuff and determine what stays and what goes.
We throw out the trash, box up the clutter (pricing as we go if a yard sale is in the near future) and clean the keepers. Any item we are in doubt about goes to separate tables I usually bring along.
We look at the stations map and decide what needs to go back into the cabinet.
We get those items out from elsewhere in the kitchen and pull out any more clutter.
We box up the clutter and clean the keepers. Move out the doubts. Move out the sentimental items.
We put the items where they need to go. Keeping the target in mind, least used items go on the outermost shelves.
Move to the second cabinet.

Sentimental Items

There are always some things that hold sentimental value, but are not actively used.

All of the gifts received at something special like for your wedding or anniversary. The special part is not in the item, it is in the memories of that moment. Keep the memory, keep the meaning behind the gift, keep all of the love and warm fuzzies, but let the item go. Take pictures of the item and caption or scrapbook them if you need to. When you give a gift, you do it to show your love. You would not want someone holding on to something just because you gave it to them. Free yourself of that burden and guilt just as you would free the recipients of your gifts. Add those items to the doubts table.

There are also those few truly rare and priceless items that go beyond the memory of the moment. You know, the weird things that do not mean anything to anyone but to us. They may or may not have any real value. They probably did not mean anything really to the people we got them from and they probably will not mean as much to the people we will someday leave them to. But they somehow hold a lifetime of memories of time spent with someone, of the homes we grew up in, of our childhood or somehow totally hold the essence of someone loved, but now gone. The ones that fill us with love, joy and down to the center of our souls warmth even if for just a second. These are keepers.

If you do not actively use those truly special sentimental items, take them out of the kitchen for now while you put everything else in order. Put them somewhere safe but in the open. Spend some time thinking about how to really display them. You need to give them a place of honor. Bring them out of the cabinets and make them part of the decor. Let yourself see it everyday, several times a day. Do not let them take up cabinet space while they hide away. Those are the items to surround yourself with and remind yourself of often.

The Doubts

Keepers are the things you know you do use. Clutter is all of the things you know you will not use. But in the kitchen that leaves a lot of in between things. In most homes the kitchen usually has more stuff than just about any other used space. Look at your kitchen. You have a lot of stuff in there. If I suggested you go into your cabinets and declutter, you may be able to pick a few things easily, but you probably would hang on to so many things that are actually clutter FOR YOU.

Kitchens hold so many ‘someday’ items. They hold all kinds of tools and gadgets that you have gotten for gifts or gotten as hand me downs. Things you purchased to make something one time. You would use them IF you entertained more. You INTEND to use them. They have an obvious, practical use. They still have value. You will use it ‘Someday’.

If they are not keepers and they are not obvious clutter, please do not put them back into your cabinets yet. Move them all out of your way as you are going through the rest of the cabinets. Make a separate space to put all of the doubts.

I always make a point to have a few temporary tables available just for this purpose. I line the tables with baskets or bins and sort the items like with like as we go. When all of the cabinets are done, we go through the doubts. Usually a person’s confidence has built up and they are feeling so good about the progress they have made during the process that it is suddenly easier to let go. Some things are pulled out to give to others who would put them to good use and appreciate them. Many other things are added to the clutter boxes.

Everything else is then boxed up with labels indicating what the box contains and the days date. Then those boxes are taped shut. If the person needs an item, they know where to retreive them. We set a date in our calendars and if the boxes have not been opened in the meantime, it gets let go sight unseen.

Your MO

You may not have time or help to go through the kitchen all at once. You may need to modify the plan. You may need to work all of the steps in one cabinet a day. You may need to work one of the steps at a time in all of the cabinets. Without someone to help you it may be harder for you to let go of some things, you may need to make smaller paces. Do what works best for you. Just keep working at it. You will get there.

If you do one step at a time, this is the order I recommend you do them boxing and donating as you go. Doing these steps will add several paces overall, but the kitchen will stay in working order as you work your way through it.

Pull out any trash. This would include all of the unused items meant to be disposable that you have saved from fast food restaurants, unused containers and jars that were originally packaging for foods you have all ready used, junk mail that you tucked away, napkins and other picnic items that have gone unused….
Pull out any obvious clutter that is not trash. All of the things you know you will not use. All of the things your family has outgrown. (Do you have kiddie cups with teenage kids?)
Realistically look at the ‘someday’ items and pull as many of them out as possible.
Take a second, third, even a fourth look at those ‘someday’ items. Pull as many out as possible.
Pull out any truly sentimental items that are not really used and display them.
Move items more frequently used to shelves closest to the counter top and less used items further out of the way.

Then:

Go through the cabinets/drawers again moving things as needed to get like items with like items.
Go through the like items and try to reduce the total number of any where you really have too many.
Check your station map and start swapping things from the station cabinet with items that need to be in the station cabinet. Set up one shelf or station at a time until they are all in place.

If you are doing one cabinet at a time, work all of the steps in order for each cabinet or shelf, then repeat them for the next until all of the cabinets and drawers are done. If you are using a timer, you can do which ever process you think will work best.

When you get done with the whole process, you may stumble around for a while because things have been moved to an unfamiliar spot, but your kitchen will quickly become much friendlier than it was before.

Each time we moved or when we remodeled our last kitchen I did this process a few times before I got everything where I wanted it. Do not strive for perfection and do not feel you wasted your time if later you feel you need to make some changes. The goal for today is to get the kitchen to work for you better than it does now.