Kitchen Clutter Busters

They say the kitchen is the heart of the home. And ya know what? I think they're right.

It's where we entertain, gather for family dinners and grab snacks and drinks throughout the day. In most houses, it's the central hub of activity - yet many kitchens are neglected in the organization department. This doesn't make any sense to me.

Why wouln't everyone want to run their kitchen like a restaurant kitchen, with everything labeled, inventoried and in its correct place? We should all take a cue from our favorite eateries and get with the program. Everything should have a designated place, preferably inside of a labeled storage container, so there is no confusion as to where something's "home" is.

I'm still in the process of getting my kitchen up to par, because unlike a restaurant, I'm not making any kind of profit by whipping up my meals. So I'm taking it piece by piece, but I've come up with some pretty good (and cheap) solutions so far.

My freezer is my secret weapon. Here's a peek inside:

All I did was purchase eight of these baskets at the dollar store, and print out "labels" on the computer. It's just a Word document I printed out with all of my food categories, and I cut and taped them to each basket.

I can go two baskets deep on the middle shelves, and one deep on the top and bottom shelves, for a total of eight.

The categories I included are:

• Smoothie packs (I make pre-made baggies of frozen fruit for smoothies)
• Desserts (Ice cream, popsicles, etc.)
• Snacks & meals (for Hot Pockets, TV dinners, etc.)
• Veggies
• Sides
• Meat
• And another "Meat"
• I have an empty basket at the bottom for miscellaneous stuff

One tip when freezing things: Always freeze FLAT. See how nicely these Ziploc baggies of fruit fit into this basket? Even if you don't use baskets, you'll maximize your frozen real estate when you freeze ground meats, soups, sauces or anything else while laying flat. Then you can stack them, or slide them into a basket like so.

 

 

The main reason I did this freezer organization was to organize my frozen meats. We always buy in bulk and separate things into meal-sized portions, to pull out when we cook certain meals. It's so important to me to avoid wasting food as much as possible, so it's essential that I have a clear inventory of what we've got in stock! And it's really as easy as bundling all our meats into these two baskets, so I can easily pull them out and find what I need.

 

 

Now, onto some more clutter-busting organizational goodness around my kitchen:

 

 

Here's a look at how I organize my measuring cups and spoons. They were taking up too much room in the drawer, so I used these Command Hooks to hang them up nice and neat.

 

 

This really isn't that original, but an over-the-door spice rack is a must for every kitchen. I may venture into the magnetic spice tin zone at some point, but for now, this works just fine. Again, I used Command Hooks to hold this baby up. Using cabinet doors for storage is essential! Always look at your cabinet doors for possibilities, when your cabinets are getting a little too cluttered.

 

 

I love these stackable storage bins for our medicine cabinet! I bought four, and labeled them with four different categories:

• Pain relief & cough/cold
• Vitamins (I have a lot of prenatals!)
• First Aid
• Prescriptions/Misc.

This way, we can grab what we need, or pull out the bin we need and look through it. Before, it was a nightmare rifling through the mess of bottles and packets. Now it's so incredibly easy to find exactly what we need!

I hope to add more to this Kitchen Clutter Busters post, as soon as I finish more projects. My next goals are to get some nice containers for my pantry items and dry goods, to cut down on the store boxed items cluttering up my space.

Until next time!

My Perfect Living Space

I knew from the moment I walked into the model home that this would be the house for us. The downstairs living space is quaint and cozy, but open and inviting. I absolutely love our open floor plan, which esentially combines our kitchen, dining area and living room into one big space. We've gone through some different furniture and color schemes over the past four years, but I think I've finally settled on a simple, casual, comfy theme I love. Welcome to our casa!

I'm giving you fair warning: you might fall asleep if you sit on our couches. See where the middle two sections are sunken-in? Yep, that's from us getting extremely comfortable over the past couple of years!


I went with a simple country apple red, black and tan for my color palette downstairs because it provides a casual elegance with just the right amount of warmth. The red drapes from floor to ceiling emphasize the room's height and make it feel bigger. Simple red accents in the blanket, pillows and placemat carry the theme throughout, without being too matchy-matchy (I hope). I love how the girly, ruffled pillows from Pier I compliment the more masculine gray pillows from Ikea.

Here is the view from our staircase. We have one of our favorite wedding photos on the wall to the left, framed by the mat that everyone signed at our wedding, which I love! On the back wall, I hung a black rubber doormat! I saw on Pinterest the idea to spraypaint a doormat white and hang it as wall art, but I kind of thought it looked good black. We'll see how I feel about it ... I may end up changing it.


You don't get to see the wall where our TV is mounted yet, because I'm not done with that space. The TV has been mounted for a long time, but we still have a dinky TV stand that is just not cutting it in the storage or looks department. My plan is to get something new before the baby is here, and then I will post about it! :)

This is the view looking into our kitchen. I love that we have so many windows to let in a bunch of natural night, but that's also why I put up drapes in addition to our blinds. It gets super hot in the summer, and closing the drapes makes the entire downstairs much darker and cooler! It is a little like a cave though, but great for movie watching!

Welcome to our kitchen, the heart of our home! I love a sleek, modern, minimalistic look for a kitchen, so I don't have too much going on in here. I keep odds and ends in the two baskets above our fridge, and mail, bills, coupons, etc. in the three baskets over by the sink (more about that in the next pic). The "Burk" blocks were made by Kattie's Kreations, and I absolutely love them! Instead of a backsplash, I painted vertical stripes with gray paint (which is already the wall color) and white paint, using painter's tape spaced four inches apart. It was so easy and gives a nice dash of style, without overdoing it.

These little shelves were a great DIY project on the cheap. I found these shelves on clearance for $10 each at Target. They were cherry wood, and I painted them with a glossy black paint. I mounted them flush with the side of the cabinets (using the hardware that came with them), and reinforced them with basic shelf supports from the hardware store. Once everything was mounted, I painted the bottom of the supports black (to match the shelves) and the wall side to match the wall color. I really lucked out that the shelves fit so perfectly in this little space! I had too much clutter on the counter, so I knew I needed to utilize that vertical space somehow. A routine trip down Target's clearance aisle was all I needed!

We got this piece of furniture also for a steal, and it's a lifesaver for providing extra storage! I keep all of our "work stuff" in the drawers, like our laptops and thngs we take with us to work every day. I pulled a couple of nice crystal bowls that we got as wedding gifts out of storage and up on these shelves, which we now use as a fruit bowl and candy bowl. I currently keep our scrapbooks and photo albums on the top shelf, but I plan to change that once I'm done with our media wall in the living room.

And here's our kitchen table, which we never eat at. But it looks pretty! I bumped it up against the window because we never have more than six people sitting there at a time, and it opens up the kitchen quite a bit. I could take the leaf out to make it smaller, but I like it this size for now. I feel like there is somewhat of a French bistro theme to this eating area, which I love. We love mirrors because they give the illusion of space, and okay, we kind of like checking ourselves out too. The best part about these mirrors is that I can see who is coming in the front door while I'm standing at the sink!

That's pretty much it for or downstairs open living space - for now! I will definitely update with our TV area makeover and organization solutions as they develop. Questions? Comments? Leave me your feedback in the space below!