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Day 2 & 3: Organizing your cabinets and drawers in 5 steps

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If you are just starting, make sure that you start at the beginning, by reading our 40 days to organization.

Day 2: Organizing your cabinets and drawers in 5 steps:

Lets get that kitchen organized!  (If you missed Day 1- Organizing your refrigerator, make sure that you check it out, too.)

When organizing your cabinets and drawers, my thought would be to do the cabinets one day and the drawers another day. You could break it down further and do one drawer a day or one cabinet a day, but I am the type that just wants to get it done, so I would just work really hard & get it finished (get your kids to help you- sorting is a great educational activity!)

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organize your cabinets and drawers

Step #1 – CABINETS: Combine like items. If you have a lot of plastic bowls, combine them & throw away or donate what you do not use. I have three mixing bowls. If you need more, keep more, but you don’t need to have more than you need in your house. Consolidate & declutter!

To do this, empty your cabinets. Look at ALL of the things that you have & start getting rid of things! Make three piles:
1). Keep
2).Donate (have a garbage bag ready for this pile).
3).Throw away- have another garbage bag ready.
4) OPTIONAL: You could have a fourth pile- “to sell”- but a lot of times, this will just make its way back into your cabinets if it doesn’t sell as quickly as you are hoping.

Now start going through each cabinet & putting it into the correct pile.

Putting them back: Put the pots and pans back near the lids: I do not store mine with the lids on, so I keep a pile of lids next to my pots and pans. You can get a file organizer or use tension rods for your lids (thank you, Martha Stewart, for that idea!), if you don’t want a pile.
Keep your cookie sheets together, too.

tension rods

I keep the ones that I use often under my oven in a pull-out drawer, but I keep the ones that I don’t use often in my kitchen table bench that my husband built for our kids to sit on:
40 days to an organized kitchen

Here are a few more pictures of it:
kitchen bench storage

Step #3- Cleaning supplies:
I keep mine up high, because I have young children (I keep mine in the pantry- coming tomorrow), but using tension rods is a great space-saver. (thank you, A Thousand Words, for this idea!)  undersink-spray-bottles

Step 4: Your drawers:
Utensil drawers can get out of control. Take the refrigerator approach & dump it all out.
See what you have doubles and triples of and get rid some extras. As my Dad tells me, if you haven’t used it in a year, get rid of it. It is hard to part with things “What if I need it one day?” but sometimes its just not worth keeping it around if it makes things cluttered & disorganized.

If you have a Junk Drawer, try to keep it organized. I keep my markers, pens, pencils together. I keep all of my chargers together (and labeled), like you can see below:
cabinets organized 001

 I just write on tape (painters tape, Christmas tape… whatever I have) and it helps me to know what charger goes with what. I write on phone chargers, too (“Becky’s phone”, “Mickey’s old phone” … whatever it may be).

I also have a “technology” drawer where I keep my Laptop, tablet, camera… I use these items in the kitchen a lot, so it makes sense to have these in a drawer in the kitchen.

When organizing your cabinets & drawers, think about how you will use them. I put our cups in the cabinet closest to the dishwasher for easy unloading. I also put our towel drawer near the sink and silverware drawer near the dishwasher (easy & fast unloading). I put our plates & bowels near the oven and stove, where we will use them the most. I keep the oven mitts in the cabinet under the stove, near the oven. Just do what works best for you. Make it easy & convenient to get what you need quickly. (Less work!)

Step 5: Clear your counter tops
Having clear counter tops makes cleaning a BREEZE! It is easy to wipe down, pull something out for cooking a meal, and there is a lot of free space for preparing food.
clear countertops

I keep our mixer and our kid’s Cotton ball jars (their reward system – check it out here) out, but that’s about it.
Clear countertops

I hope that helped. You may want to break this into two days, or do the cabinets in the morning and the drawers in the afternoon or after the kids are asleep. I like to do this when our kids are up because they love helping with jobs like this (they pretend to be cooks when they find the waffle iron and make drums when I get out our utensils.)

Here is their latest drum set:
bench storage organizing home for kids 030

Here is another resource full of tips if you are looking for more way to clean & organize.  Click on the picture to get more info.

FREED FROM CLUTTER - BECKY MANSFIELD

See more ways to organize your home: The Home

READY FOR DAY 4? ORGANIZE YOUR PANTRY

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Comments

  1. Oh, the drum set brings back memories!! 🙂 15-yo son used to play almost every day on pots, about 12 years ago! Wonderful tips and LOVE the tension rods idea–thanks!

    Reply

  2. A few years ago when we moved I got rid of all my extra pots and pans and only kept the ones I use on a regular basis! It’s been so much easier to keep everything organized. (I’m past the little kids stage so don’t need a drum set LOL 😉 )

    Reply

  6. Awesome tips!! Love your blog, too! Just followed on FB, Twitter, RSS and G+! Thank you so much for sharing at A Bouquet of Talent this week. So thrilled to have you share with us. Hope you are having a great week. 🙂
    Hugs
    Kathy

    Reply

  7. Interesting use of tension rods~very clever. Needing to get to this, but just can’t think about it right now. I have a graduation coming up in May…at least I have a deadline. Thanks for the great tips.

    Reply

  9. I love tension rods. They are so handy. How clever the ways you are using them to organize your kitchen.

    Thanks for sharing this at my mommy solution linky party. This was the #4 clicked mom tip shared last week!

    See ya on Wednesday.

    Reply

  11. Oh, I love your storage bench in the kitchen! The advice about putting tape on chargers is spot on, too. We used to have a bunch of unidentifiable ones in our junk drawer, and then I attached bread bag clips to the cords and labeled them. Finally, no more tears when I need something charged pronto! If you haven’t already, I’d love if you’d come join my How To Tuesday link party, too.

    http://housewifehowtos.com/link-party-2/how-to-tuesday-link-party-11/

    Reply

  13. donate to a new college kid that’s got a new apartment place of their own and need kitchen items to get started. They will appreciate it.

    Reply

  15. Hello! I enjoy your blog very much and I find it very helpful. I just wanted to point out, however, that I believe you mean “bowls” instead of “bowels”. I just don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea when reading the article!

    Reply

  16. Hi I am cronicly disorganized,because of being overwhelmed,and am convinced its ADD, lol your tips are great ,especially,the frige shelf liner and the tension rod for kitchen shelves, ..thanks I believe there is hope for me yet

    Reply

  17. Hi. I’m on day 2 and I noticed you do have a wonderful kitchen!! No wonder I love it. It’s almost identical to mine! I even have the same granite counter tops and cupboards! My kitchen is just a baby size of what you have. I really feel connected to you now. We are kindred spirits! LOL.

    Reply

  18. I should definitely reorganize my cabinets. I have a lot of dishes and I don’t know how exactly to combine them so that it will be easier to find them. Thanks a lot for the advices you gave!

    Reply

  19. What a splendid kitchen! I am a newlywed embarking on a new home within the next few months and I need all the inspiration I can get! But I have a question. Where, in your beautifully manicured kitchen, do you hide your small appliances? I have seen many homemakers put them on the counter, but of course yours are perfectly clear.

    Reply

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Hi, I'm Becky Mansfield!

Founder of Your Modern Family. I am the wife to Mickey & the mom to four little blessings! I am a teacher turned play therapist and stay at home Mom. I love to share my organization tips, kid ideas, money-saving tips and recipes with you. More About Becky...

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