September Projects

Thanks to all of you (outside of my family) who have been putting up with the tales of our summer vacation.  I pre-posted all of those to tide the blog over while I was working on some projects around the house.  Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming!

Remember this?

I am sooooo happy to report that the backpack storage is actually working.  Check it out.  There is nothing on the floor in my family room!

Except Hunter the dog, who has a thing about trying to get into all my pictures.  Honestly, it's like I have a permanent four-year-old.  Let's try that shot again.  "Hunter!  Here!  Get over here!" 

Like I said, nothing on the floor!  Because it is all safely contained under my slip-covered table. 

Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Well, that was not the case for my kitchen cabinets.  They were long overdue for a good cleaning and reorganizing.  I spent the majority of last week with the contents of my many cabinets all over the countertops, as I cleaned out everything, sorted, and moved things around so that I could have a more efficient configuration.  It was a big job.

Now, I have one cupboard devoted to breakfast prep, since we have a few people around here that are getting fairly independent about fixing breakfast.  I made sure it was one of the lower cabinets, so I didn't have children climbing on stools and standing on the counter all morning during breakfast time.  You know what I'm talking about, right?

 The drawer above has an extra, older set of utensils and a few plastic plates that are well-suited to breakfast.  It cuts down on the kitchen traffic to store them right there, where the food prep is happening.

Not far from the breakfast cupboard, I now have a lunch prep cupboard.  It's a little empty right now, since my big shopping trip is at the end of this week.

Dealing with all my plastic storage containers was what actually snowballed this whole kitchen reorganization.  They were falling out all over one cupboard, so I sorted them and organized them by size and shape into one cabinet of four drawers. 

 The plastic storage containers are much easier to find and put away, now.

So are my measuring and stirring utensils.  The parchment paper is handy there, too.  This drawer is at my island, where I stand to do the bulk of my food prep.

For some strange reason, I used to keep all my spices and most of my pantry items across the kitchen from the island, next to the stove and down the hallway in the pantry.  It was very inefficient.  I've saved many steps, now that I've moved the spices and many small pantry items so that they are a step away from the island.  What took me so long?

It's been really interesting to me to discover how much more efficiently I'm working in my kitchen, since completing this project.  I have a fairly large pantry closet in the back hallway, which I've been able to empty almost completely.  I'm now storing some large platters and seasonal items there, that were taking space in the kitchen area.  The bare pantry has given the Bionic Man and I some ideas, such as removing it to make way for a wider hall with locker storage for coats, etc.  There is nothing the Bionic Man and I enjoy more than coming up with crazy renovation ideas.  (Luckily, we don't start them as soon as we think of them.)

Stay tuned for another project....that looks like this:

I'm linking to