Who’s ready to get organized?!? Would anyone be interested in a special giveaway? This month I’m joining several of my blogger girlfriends from the No Place Like Home crew to offer you a 4 week cleaning, organizing and decluttering series. We are also doing a special giveaway at the end of the 4 weeks! (giveaway details below) To start off the series I’m sharing 10 really simple kitchen organization tips and solutions that I use everyday in my home.
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Wire Shelf Pantry Solution
I hate wire shelves. I think they’re a real pain in neck. Jars wobble on the uneven surface and skinny items fall right through to the floor. I have every intention of replacing the wire shelves in my pantry with wooden shelves one day but till I can get around to that project I needed a quick solution.
I measured the size of my shelves and headed to the home improvement for a few sheets of plexiglass. The sheets of Plexiglass were cut at the store and all I had to do when I got home was to lay the Plexiglass over top of the existing shelves.
It’s an instant solution! Not only does my food sit flat on the shelves but the plexiglass helps distribute the weight of the heavy items keeping the flimsy wire shelves from sagging.
2. Recycle Jumbo Snack Containers for Dry Goods
I love my OXO modular containers for dry goods but finding a container large enough to keep a truck load of flour was a challenge.
My solution was to purchase one of those large jars of cheese-puff snacks from Target and set the giant jar of cheesy goodness in front of my teenage boys with the instructions to please leave me some. In this house “please don’t eat them all” or “please leave me some” is actually code for “eat every last one of them as fast as humanly possible and if necessary arm wrestle your brother over the last bite.”
The plan worked like a charm and one hour later all 2,000 cheese-puffs (minus the 1 puff they so generously saved me) had been inhaled. I happily washed and dried the plastic jar and was the proud owner of a new flour container. I used my silhouette to make my own pantry label. Problem solved! By the way, if you don’t have a silhouette my friend Robin from A home to Grow Old is offering free printable labels right now.
3. Tilt out Sink Trays
I love my tilt out trays! They are perfect to keep the sink clear of damp sponges and scrubbers. I bought my kit from the home improvement store. It came with two trays, the hinges and instructions. It’s a simple update that goes a long way to keeping a clutter free sink.
By the way, you may not want to keep your finger nail brush in one of the trays because no matter how many times you tell your kids it’s only for cleaning mom’s hands they will make sure they use the delicate brush to clean the most food encrusted dishes they can find. EVERY TIME without fail. That’s OK boys, I need to clean the toilets this week and I know where you keep your toothbrushes. You are welcome, love Mom.
4.Kitchen Counter Crumb Prevention
Don’t laugh, but this is actually an awesome solution to keep the toaster from dropping crumbs all over the counter and the cupboard I store it in. I started keeping the toaster in this fancy toaster tray (a shoe box lid covered with a drawer liner) because my enthusiastic toast making family couldn’t remember to wipe the crumbs from the counter after their toasting adventures.
So instead of being irritated everyday by the on slot of daily breakfast crumbs, I enacted the toaster tray solution. Keep the toaster in the box, the crumbs are kept off the counter, mom doesn’t loose her mind and everybody gets to live. It’s a win win for all.
5. Poor Man’s slide out drawer
Again, I’m really not joking here, this is my kitchen. Getting items out of the very bottom of this narrow and deep kitchen cupboard is a pain. To fully make use of the space I put a short sided box the same width and depth of the cupboard.
Now everything including the items in the back are easily accessible because It works as a slide out tray. I know this isn’t the prettiest of solutions, however it works fabulously. I’m sure I could cover it and make it prettier, but until today no one except me ever saw it.
And in case your family is like mine and needs the extra reminder….
Hey don’t knock it. Prior to the special toaster note my family put the toaster away 0% of the time. After “Mr. Toaster” they now put the toaster away 50% of the time. And that my friends is a 100% increase! The proof is in the math.
6. Kitchen Homework & Craft Supply Storage
Home work is often done at the kitchen counter in our house so I dedicated one pull out tray in a cupboard for supplies. This keeps the kids from bugging me every afternoon for stupid things like highlighters and notecards and it keeps the school supply scavenger hunts to a minimum.
Again, I used the fancy box method to keep supplies from falling off the back of the pull out tray. I also use my homemade supply caddy’s from old drink containers to help keep the supplies organized. You can find the instructions to make your own supply caddies here.
7.The Keurig and her K-cup reduction
My husband loves coffee like I love crafts. So as you can imagine we have a couple of coffee makers that are in use at all times. There’s the traditional coffee pot that he uses to make his daily keg of coffee and then he has his K-cup machine for his weekend coffee.
Now that doesn’t sound so bad right? Wrong. My husband likes to sample k-cups ( referring to coffee of course) like he is at a wine tasting. We have 80,000 K-cups floating around the kitchen. In the past I created a drawer just for the little cups. That sort of worked but the cups still ended up on the counter, because it was more convenient.
So, this week I found this cute little ceramic dish at Marshall’s for under $5.00 to go next to the coffee maker. It holds about 9 of those cups. We still have the drawer to hold the mother load but for convenience now we have several flavors neatly next to the Keurig maker. He’s happy since it’s handy and I’m happy, because it’s tidy and doesn’t take up a lot of space.
8. Coffee Mugs Galore
Is it just me or do coffee mugs reproduce when we are not looking? I do a clean out the excessive mugs every now and then but I still find myself coffee mug challenged. My dilemma is I have two sets of coffee mugs, the ones I use and the grown-up ones that match my dishes. I feel obligated to keep the adult matchy ones but I prefer my mug to speak an important message about me after all a coffee mug defines a person.
For example, the coffee mug sporting a pair of pants with the words “smarty pants” printed on it is a keeper. That and the mug that says “early bird” for the days when I sleep in and then pour my first cup of coffee while my husband is eating his lunch sends the perfect message. He really loves that and I like to please him, so that is a keeper as well.
My solution to save space is to stack and store the matching mugs, but as you know, coffee mugs don’t always stack well. To make the mugs stack safely I cut pieces of sturdy cardboard (matboard) to set on top of the mugs so the next layer of mugs has a wider surface to rest on.
9.Keep Frequently Used Items Handy
I love to make to most out of vertical spaces. The back side of doors are great because it’s out of sight but still very convenient. The challenge with pantry doors are they usually have a hollow core so screwing in a hook is out of the question. This is where Command strips hooks save the day. The back of my pantry now hangs several of my regularly used items like brooms and dust pans. I’m obsessed with Command strip hooks! It is the perfect solution.
10.Give Yourself an Incentive to Keep the Kitchen Clean
I don’t know about you, but I hate to clean and often need extra motivation in order to keep up with the kitchen. I find that I’m more motivated to keep a room clean when I feel good in that room. For a quick pick me up in a room I like to grab inexpensive bouquets of flowers from at the grocery store and set them above the sink.
It’s hard to let dirty dishes sit in the sink when a beautiful bouquet is right above. Flowers always brighten a room. For tips on how to make cheap flowers look like they came from the florist check out my post on arranging flowers.
I hope you found one or two of my Kitchen solutions handy. Next week we move on to the craft/office organization. See you then.
Happy Creating (and Cleaning),
Don’t forget to check out more decluttering tips and ideas from the No Place Like Home bloggers…
A Home To Grow Old In | Hey Fitzy | Nourish and Nestle | Sweet Parrish Place
Paint Yourself A Smile | The Red Painted Cottage | Savvy Apron
$150 gift card Givaway from The Container Store
As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, we are hope you will join us in this decluttering adventure and as an incentive we are offering the opportunity to win a $150 gift card from The Container Store.
Multiple opportunities to enter the giveaway:
1) Each week submit a photo of a declutter challenge or success to the inlinkz below. (If you are not linking from a webpage and are just uploading an image from your computer, click
on option 3 in the inlinkz box that says ‘Image URL’ and add your image from your computer. This link helps explain that further.)
Link Party Guidelines:
2) Follow the rest of the Rafflecopter prompts below.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Larry Weaver says
I really like the idea to have a homework and craft supply in kitchen storage. My kids are always looking around the house for things they can use for homework, whether it be pens, pencils, or markers. Getting some kind of cupboard in my kitchen where I can centralize a bunch of homework supplies sounds like a great idea to do in my own home!
Emmi @ Emmi's Cookinside.blog says
Now I am so motivated to your great inspirations! There are a few ideas that I’m going to use in my kitchen! I love the simple idea of the poor man slide out drawers and the homework solution. 😉
– Emmi
mysideof50 says
Love, love, love these ideas. Especially the plexiglass for your wire shelves and the toaster caddy! Great post!
Mary-The Boondocks Blog says
Jen I really like your solutions to these common problems in the kitchen. I too am always looking for budget friendly ways to organize and store things. The toaster idea with the reminder label is also very clever. The use of the boxes is not only practical but you are recycling material that would otherwise go into the garbage. My kinda gal!
nikkifrankhamilton says
Great tips! I have been in a quandary about what to use to store different gluten free flours, this is perfect for me, the family can eat the “goodies” in the snack jars and I get a free storage solution for my flours. Total win win!
Since the first of the year I have been on a cleaning, clearing, removing binge. At home, on my blog, my email inbox. Sure has made me feel lighter and freer. Pinning your post, these are great solutions and when I get to the kitchen I’m going to need them!
Debbie Kitterman says
Hey Jenny, to answer your question, yes, coffee cups have a special way of multiplying when we are not looking! LOL I loved all your tips, but I found #5 & 8 especially helpful. and love #10 of course – gorgeous picture by the way. I have an issue with my pantry always being cluttered.. its not a walk in, but has two doors kinda like closet doors that swing open, but the shelves are so deep and the closet is tall, know one can eve find the things they need and so much space is wasted…. If you have any tips let me know. thank you so much for linking up to #WayWow this week, that is where I found you.
Jennifer says
Hi Debbie!!! Thank you for the kind words and reading my post. I have a similar pantry. It’s two closet like doors that open up to shelves. On one hand it holds a lot but if you take advantage of all the space, food get buried and stuff sits uneaten. I’ve tried the nice Pinterest panty solutions with everything in uniformly sized containers but I found that to be more of the same. And to be honest my kids eat a box of cereal every two days. It would be a full time job to continually transfer box items into containers just to make it look neat. Baskets see good but I find they can do more hiding than helping. I don’t have a great answer. I have started keeping a panty rack in my basement the has the extras and the every blue moon items. This keeps me from over packing the pantry and the daily items can be seen and found. I keep a list on the inside of the pantry door so I know what is on the table get flow shelf in the basement. I also love rectangular clear storage boxes that I can group items and then pull out like a drawer. I keep things like jello boxes and packets in those. I like clear because it feel like it makes it all easy to see. I’m sure there are better solutions but that is what works for me. Good luck with your pantry
Hugs, Jenny
Sandra Garth says
I love your tips Jenny! Guess I’ll buy a couple of oversized snack jars real soon.
Jennifer says
Hi Sandra!!!!!!! Yes and You’re a big cook & baker so I bet you have a lot of extra dry goods around and could use a few. They aren’t fancy but they are light weight so that makes them a winner in my book. I hope all is well in your world. Big Hugs my friend-Jenny
Hil D (@Raisingfairies) says
Great tips! My kitchen needs some serious help.
Jenna Owens (@aSavoryFeast) says
These are some great ideas! I especially love the idea of lining those wire shelves. I used to have shelves like that and it was such a pain having things fall through.
Carol says
Great tips – your kitchen is beautiful!
Nadia says
Jenny, thank you for your tips! The one about flour is especially useful. I also can never fit entire load of flour into one container. But I never thought to buy some snacks and reuse the jar – maybe because we never buy that huge size of snacks. It would take us forever to eat them (not until we have hungry teenagers in the house). But I think I can bring it to the office to treat my co-workers 🙂 I will have an empty jar by the end of business day!
Florence says
I love your toaster tray idea…sounds like my kind of solution. In fact, I used a pink shoebox in the car between seats for hubby to throw his junk into since our car doesn’t have a console. Also I love that white bowl you’re using for the Keurig. And totally relate to your feelings about wire shelves…they’re cute, but impractical. Plexiglass is a great solution.
Erin - Suburban Simplicity says
OMG, totally loving your Mr. Toaster sticker! Now, that’s how you get everyone in the house to put things away! Organizing and decluttering one step at a time is key!
Ducks 'n a Row (@SineaPies) says
Truly I AM decluttering my kitchen. I have been eyeing a small desk that I wanted to set up in my kitchen as my blogging space and finally after a very long wait, my dream has come true. Now that I have my pretty new area to work in, I want the whole kitchen neat and organized….talk about incentive!
Jennifer says
Yay on the desk!!! That would motivate me too. I need to try that method in a few of my other rooms. I have quite a few areas to address and I’m lacking motivation. I hope you share your new desk because I would love to see it. Good luck in your Kitchen
Hugs, Jenny
Jean | DelightfulRepast.com says
Jenny, great tips! And I love your solution to the K-cup situation. And you came up with a great solution for the wire shelving!
Jennifer says
Thanks Jean. These K-cups are going to be the death of me. Lol
Hugs-Jenny
like Sara...but with a d says
I pinned the tilt outs under the sink so I wouldn’t forget about them! What a fantastic idea. How do the sponges and things dry under there? No too mildew-y?
Jennifer says
HI Sara, Mine dry just fine and I haven’t had any mildew at all. Thanks for the pin! Have a great evening, XO -Jenny
Robin says
You, my friend, have got some awesome organizing ideas! I never thought to put a tray under my toaster, but I’ll be looking for one now. Thanks so much for sharing my labels! Can’t wait to see your mad organizing skills again next week!
Nicki Parrish says
I love your use of the cardboard box as a sliding shelf, that is my kind of organization my friend! Great tip!
Lynn Spencer says
Jenny, I do the same thing with my toaster! Make a world of difference…but I do think I need to put a sign on it. And the coffee cup stacking idea? Brilliant! Thanks for the great suggestions my friend…there is no doubt that your kitchen is well organized.
Have a great day, Lynn
John J. Kavanagh says
Hey hazelnut, mocha coffee, way too many marshmallow girl Keurig is community.
calgalsh says
I often declutter, cuz my mom was a maniac and so am I! I am decluttering a magazine basket today! ( I love the sign “Put me away” on your toaster and the box UNDER the toaster….. GREAT IDEA)