True story – Carolyn spent most of this month looking for a muffin pan that she knew was somewhere in the kitchen. But where? The muffin pan odyssey led to a complete “redo” of her entire kitchen cabinets, drawers, and the troublesome lazy susan corner cabinet. This journey led to our 5 tips for reorganizing your kitchen:
Take an inventory of the items in your kitchen and give away your “multiples.” Everyone love a good frying pan. How do you love 7 frying pans stacked on top of each other? Pick your favorites and find another home for the rest. We are giving the extras to a friend who just bought a second home and needs to stock a kitchen.
Group all “like items” together. This advice would have saved hours of time searching for the muffin pan. All baking pans in one drawer. Period. Same advice for mixing bowls. This step, combined with the “inventory of items” led to another donation of two sets of bowls.
Use containers in your drawers. I have to admit, this was not my idea. When a good friend, and, as I discovered a member of a professional organizing group visited my house I took her on a tour of kitchen. When I opened the drawer for pot holders, aprons, and kitchen towels they had already jumbled themselves together. While the grouping of “like items” together was successful the drawer was still messy. She suggested that I put the tea towels, aprons, and pot holders in their own separate plastic cubes/containers in the drawer to keep them divided. Brilliant! Thank you!
Rethink your routines. Pet confession – our dog’s food, treats, medication, and pet bowls took up the entire base of our lazy susan corner cabinet. Every day we would spin the wheel to feed our furry friend. After the purging of the frying pans we had an entire drawer that was empty. To our amazement all of the dog items fit nicely into the empty drawer. Bonus space reclaimed in the lazy susan.
Toss all spices that you never use. I’ll admit this isn’t easy. As soon as I toss the Old Bay Seasoning I will need it for a recipe, right? If your spices are overflowing you have to make some tough choices. If you haven’t cooked with that spice in a few years then it’s safe to say it’s not a keeper. We said goodbye to curry paste, mustard seeds, very old bay leaves, and whole peppercorns (we don’t have a grinder).
Where was the muffin pan anyway? In the midst of the entire kitchen redo we really can’t remember where it turned up. Now it has a home in the baking pan drawer. Blueberry muffins anyone?