Painted Diva

It has been a busy weekend for me. I had a lot of fun working on reorganizing my kitchen. I’ve come to love having my home in order. It makes it a lot more functional for the family. When you look at my kitchen at first glance you would never know the dysfunction behind the closed drawers and cabinets. Just take a look at this mess. How in the world did we find anything?

I cannot recall what finally made me say that enough is enough. Maybe I finally got tired of all the sifting through things. Half the time I never found what I was looking for.

So how did I do it? Well, let me just first say that I wanted to organize but I also wanted to organize on a low-budget. I ordered some items from Amazon to help on this organizing crusade. Sadly, because we got several inches of snow and ice it delayed my items. That’s okay though, they will be here tomorrow and I’ll be excited to put them in the places I have in mind for them.

So I started at my local Dollar General where I found some great plastic containers for organizing. I paid a $1 for each for most of the items but a couple of items I paid $3 for. I think that is very reasonable.

As you can see I found some other bargains while I was at the dollar store. I ended up with a box of super pretzels, some gain dryer sheets, and an organizer for my daughters shower.

I started with my drawers since they were the worst. I looked through and pitched stuff that it made no sense for me to keep anymore. I organized the junk drawers so that tools, nails, screws, etc. all have their own place. I thought about the things I would go looking for and never be able to find. I thought about the things that I would use most often and I made those items easier to get access to by placing them in the front.

I used the containers that I bought as some older Tupperware to separate my junk.

I went through each drawer, my food pantry, and each of my cabinets. I do still have a couple of cabinets left. The cabinets under my kitchen sink. I did decide to wait on those because one of the items I ordered from Amazon is specifically for underneath the kitchen sink. I think I put in 8 hours on Saturday. Probably not even 8 hours because I did some shopping in the afternoon, I took my daughter and her friend to the mall, picked them up from the mall, and went out to eat for dinner. I put in 6 hours today on finishing up. It wasn’t really a full 6 hours today either because I also re-potted my hibiscus and added new soil to 3 other plants in my home during that time. I get sidetracked sometimes. I’m laughing as I type that because it never fails, I start doing one thing and I end up doing at least 3 more things.

I am extremely proud of how my pantry turned out. I even made myself a homemade spice rack out of styrofoam I had in my basement and some colored construction paper. I wrapped the foam in construction paper and secured it with hot glue. I then glued the two pieces of foam together and “wah-la”. It took me 5 minutes to make and since it would be covered with my spices I was not to concerned with the overall look. It was functional that I was aiming for.

I took the plastic containers that I bought from the dollar store to separate out certain items. My goal is to make it easy for me when looking for a spice or a particular can good but also to keep it easy for my husband and daughter. If it is not functional for the everyone it will defeat the purpose and will not stay organized. Take a look at the before and after.

See my homemade spice rack. Didn’t even cost me a penny. Just 5 minutes of my time.

I labeled the containers to make it easier to find what you are hunting for. For the labels I actually cut the name of the product off the particular product box. Yes, I am a bit proud of this, I thought it turned out pretty awesome!

Overall, I am very satisfied with the outcome of this project. I’m still very excited to finish under the kitchen sink. I have to admit that having the kitchen organized this way has really added a nice feel.

I am still looking for ideas to make this project even better. Remember to enter the $25 Amazon gift card giveaway. I am also giving away a $10 Amazon gift card to the person that shares their own organizing idea with me. If I use your idea as part of my project, you win the $10 Amazon gift card. So you have two chances to win. One by entering the drawing itself and two if you also leave me an awesome idea in the comments . Don’t forget to enter everyday!

I will do a follow-up blog on this project so that I can show everyone what I do under my sink and to also show what the items I ordered look like and how they helped. The items I am referring to were in my earlier blog post if you are curious.

I hope everyone had a great weekend.

XOXO