I’ve been working hard at finding ways to keep myself busy. I have struggled with figuring out what to do from time to time, but in general, I think I have been doing a pretty decent job. This is not a normal time at all, so there is no way that we should be acting. I’m just trying to do things that are safe and smart to occupy myself.
I wrote about doing some big cleaning projects recently. I’m working on getting into a better cleaning routine and schedule that I can maintain even when things start getting back to how they were. I know that I’m not the best housekeeper and I would totally pay for someone to clean my place if I could. But there is no excuse for at least trying to get better at cleaning and seeing what I can get used to doing.
Part of those cleaning projects has also involved getting myself organized. As I clean, I find things around my house that maybe I forgot that I owned or had been looking for. I need to make my space the most efficient and practical for myself. Organizing my desk has been a project on my to-do list for a long time because I can tell that the disorganization is making some things harder for me. That project still is on my list and I haven’t really gotten started with it. But I have been spending a lot of time organizing my kitchen.
My kitchen organization happened for a few reasons. When I did the huge deep cleaning of my fridge, I realized that I wasn’t keeping things organized in my fridge. Things weren’t necessarily in the best places to keep them and it made it look sloppy and harder to find things I might be looking for. And that can lead to food waste, which is something that I am very guilty of but am trying to be better about it.
After organizing my fridge, I looked around my kitchen and realized that I hadn’t really done much organizing of my kitchen at all. When I moved into my house over 10 years ago, I put things in places that made sense and they haven’t moved around much. And I know that there was some wasted space in my kitchen, which was really bad since I am so limited in space. So I decided to take a look at things, see where I can organize things better, and spend a lot of time moving things around and making my kitchen a better space.
This project took a lot of time (which was fine since I’ve got nothing but time right now) and I broke it up into chunks. I did have to order new things to help me organize like a new spice rack and some can holders to maximize the space that I do have.
I had a spice race before, but it wasn’t working for me because the containers had to be a specific size to work. I was using my pantry area to store spices because they needed a place to go, but once I got the new spice rack I could move the spices to a better place and use the pantry for things like soup and rice (using the new can holders). Being organized like this is also allowing me to have more food at my house. I’m not hoarding or stocking up a lot, but it’s nice to know that I have cans of beans that I can use for dips and not have to go to the grocery store just to get them (which you can’t really do easily right now anyway).
But what I think was the biggest organizing project in my house were my cabinets where I have kept dishes and cups. Those cabinets haven’t really had any changes in 10 years, even as I got new stuff or realized that I didn’t use things. The first part of that project was going through everything in those cabinets and taking out things that I know I don’t use. I put a lot of cups and mugs into boxes and stored them away. I had something like 30 cups and 15 mugs and really don’t need more than a few of each.
Then, I found some shelves that I could add to my cabinets to have the ability to use more vertical space. There was so much wasted space since I wasn’t going to make tall piles of dishes and these really made a huge difference. There were a lot of different attempts to make these work the best way that they could for me and I probably redid the cabinets a few dozen times, but I finally found something that I was happy with.
I wish I had taken a real before photos of the cabinets, but I only took it after I had removed most of the cups and mugs. So it looks a lot emptier than it really was. And in the after photo, you can see that I have a space to store things like reusable zipper bags, silicone dish covers, and some storage containers.
And by stacking the dishes and cups, I was able to use one half of the cabinet for those things instead of having one half for dishes and one half for cups. I’m really happy with how much easier this makes things for me with getting dishes and storage containers.
I’m not completely done with the organizing project, but I’m almost there. But I have already noticed a difference in how my kitchen feels. And since I’m cooking so much more now, having a kitchen that feels right and that things are where they should be is very important. Hopefully, when I finally get to my desk organizing, it will feel as good as organizing my kitchen did!
You Might Also Like
Organization Time (or Seeing A Bit Of A Mess)
Making My House Look Fancy (or Doing Some Upgrades For The New Year)
Cleaning Up And Giving Things Away (or Finding More Space In My House)
Slowly Spring Cleaning (or Tidying Up My Way)
Spring Cleaning (or Needing To Declutter Again)
More Empty Space In My House (The Cleaning And Organizing Continues)
