MISSION: Organization (Project 1)

by Ang

I love to organize; I’ve blogged about it before. I think everything should have a place. I’ve lived in my current home with my husband now for 7 months. After I moved in, I rearranged a few things, but for the most part I just put things away for the sake of putting them away. There wasn’t a lot of rhyme or reason to, well, anything. But it was finally time.

I made a rather large list of things I want to go through and get organized in our home, and I’ll be blogging about it on the way. For those of you who find this boring (and trust me, I know you’re out there!), you can skip these posts. But I know there are others out there who may want to get organized themselves and just need that little extra push or some motivation. If that’s you…keep reading!

The first project I tackled is part of our kitchen. Notice I said ‘part’. This is the first rule in organizing: 1. Do not take on more than you can finish in one setting. This is important. There is nothing more frustrating than starting a project and having to leave it mid-way because you ran out of time. And then it sits there….and sits there for who knows how long. It’s best to make sure you have enough time to finish what you started.

I chose the kitchen first because it was the room that was driving me the most nuts. On the outside, it looked fine. But if you opened the cabinets, well that was a whole other story. The last straw was when we made a trip to Costco and bought a box of individual bags of chips and we had no room for them. They ended up on top of our cabinets (you know the space between the tops of the cabinets and the ceiling?) That was it. I was ready to do something. I was NOT okay with chips on my cabinet tops.

Step #2: Plan ahead. You don’t want to be right in the middle of your project and realize that you don’t have the tools you need to finish. Before I tackled this project I thought about how I wanted it to look and how I wanted it to function. Once you’ve decided what you want, get what you need. If you already have everything – great! If not, it’s time to shop.

I went to Ross and got all of these for $20 total:

I highly recommend if you tackle any kind of a kitchen organization project to check out stores like Ross, TJ Maxx and Marshall’s for kitchen items. They are way cheaper than even Wal-Mart (and the quality is better too).

I bought more canisters, because I hate boxes and bags. Boxes and bags take up too much space and they are ugly. Not that everything in the kitchen has to be pretty, but one of my pet peeves is when I see the tops of refrigerators covered with cereal boxes, chip bags, etc. If you’re going to have your food set out and not in cabinets, at least make it look a little better. I like having items that we eat every day more easily at our fingertips, so I think it’s fine to leave them out on the counter….but not in their original box.

We keep all of our food in two cabinets and a long pantry-type cabinet. To say that it was disorganized was a total understatement. See?


Just awful. See my hand holding back the items in our top cabinet? I had to do that because they would fall out. Every time we would open that cabinet, my collection of reusable grocery bags would come tumbling out. Not the best system.

I tackled one cabinet at a time, the first being the long pantry. It was the worst. I took everything out first. This brings me to step 3: Clean as you go. Because really, when else are you going to remove everything from your cabinets, shelves, closets, etc.? Only when you’re cleaning them out. I wiped down the shelves, the back, the sides, everything. I worked from the bottom up. Thankfully, our shelves in this cabinet are adjustable. The pet food stayed at the bottom. Then I looked at all of my items and grouped them together (cereals together, pasta, sides, etc.). I had originally started doing this because it’s the obvious thing to do, but then I ran out of room and would just put new things wherever I could find the space, thus leading to the total breakdown of the cabinets.

Cereal came next, along with the almonds (now in their nice new airtight container). Before and after pics:

Then pasta and sides. Before and after pics:

This is where I switched it up a bit. Before, the canned goods were all in a different cabinet. It didn’t work well, because the shelf was a lot smaller. So I moved them over here. Before and after pics:

And then I switched it up some more. We keep all of our medicine, vitamins, etc. in the kitchen. It works for us. But they were also in another smaller cabinet. So I moved those to the top shelf in our pantry. Before and after:

And then came the dreaded top shelf safety hazard. I removed all of the bags, threw out the FIVE Albuquerque phone books (why did we have five?) and a couple other things that didn’t belong in the kitchen. It became the new home for my spices, oils and stock. For the before picture, see the 'hand' picture above. Here's the after:

I folded the bags and put them in an empty drawer.

Next I did the cabinet that previously held our baking supplies, medicine, and other miscellaneous items. I did the top shelf first. The baking supplies stayed there, but instead of open bags and white powder all over the shelf, it now looks a lot better. Before and after:

Now I have almost the entire bottom shelf reserved for my tea. I think that gives me reason to buy some more…right?

Now onto the last cabinet. This one was bad too. It was just a mix of stuff. It still kind of is, but it’s much more organized now. I wanted this cabinet to be our snack/sandwich cabinet. For chips, peanut butter, crackers, anything snack type. And that’s what it became! Before and after:

This whole project took me 3 hours. Not bad considering the time it will save me when I’m cooking, putting away groceries, trying to find that extra bottle of salad dressing that I KNEW I had bought last week, etc.

And I really didn’t get rid of much. Maybe one (Target sized) plastic bag full. And that’s it. It was all reorganizing and putting things where they made sense. For example, I don’t bake often, which is why the flour and sugar are on the high shelf. This may seem obvious to most, but some people have a really hard time organizing. I work with a woman who wants me to come over and help her get organized because she really doesn’t have any clue how to do it.

The fourth and final rule of organizing is take before and after pictures! It will really help you to stay motivated to tackle the next project. You can even blog about it if you want. :)


So you can call me a geek (my husband does, but lovingly), but I’m okay with it. This is one thing I can cross off of my ‘To Organize’ list. I’m going to work very hard to keep it looking as good as it does now!

Next up: My desk