Decluttering - Week 2 Day 1 - Pantry

Week 2

1. Kitchen other or pantry
2. Kitchen cookbooks and recipes
3. Videos, CDs and DVDs
4. Your desk or work area
5. Children's books - Day 1

This week we're finishing up the kitchen!!!!  How fun!!!  Let's hit the pantry.  Mine can always use some organization, but I'm not sure I'll find much to get rid of.  We'll see.  I may have to work another area as well.



Before

After

 

As you can see not much changed.  I took the opened package of cookies and put them in snack portions in the jar, put all the onions together and the potatoes together, and rearranged some things on the higher shelves.

 

Here's what I found to get rid of, by looking on top of the pantry and above the cupboards:

Keep pressing on,
Steph



De-cluttering - Week 1 Day 5 - Kitchen Linens

If you are just joining us, start here.

Day 1 was Kitchen drawers.

Day 2 was Kitchen cupboards upper.

Day 3 was Kitchen cupboards lower

Day 4 was Junk drawer

Today is Kitchen Linens

I don't have any kitchen linens much.  And what I do have is with Christmas stuff and Thanksgiving stuff.  So today, go through your linens. 

Totals to-date are 50.

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Decluttering - Week 1 Day 4 - Kitchen junk drawer

If you are just joining us, start here.

Day 1 was Kitchen drawers.

Day 2 was Kitchen cupboards upper.

Day 3 was Kitchen cupboards lower

Today is the junk drawer.  I actually just did this recently, but it will be good to do it again.

Before

After

There wasn't ten things to get rid of in the junk drawer, so I decided to go through my file box.  This sits on my counter and keeps the kids' school pages and things for studying.  There is a folder for each school, and for each child.  There are also folders for my daycare and for the lady that comes over one weekend a month, and one for Carpenter which doesn't get used, and one for bills that I'm afraid to use, lest I forget I put it there - I have a different system.

 

So I had a lot of papers to get rid of - let's just say 20 and call it good. So my total for this challenge is 55.  There were way more than 20 pages to get rid of but I can't justify counting each one.

 

Keep pressing on,

Steph

 

Tomorrow is Kitchen Linens - I don't have much of these.

Decluttering - Week 1 Day 3 - Kitchen cupboards lower

If you are just joining us, start here.

Day 1 was Kitchen drawers.

Day 2 was Kitchen cupboards upper.

Today we worked on the lower cupboards.  I say "we" because I had help.  My older boys are home from school for spring break so they each took a couple of cupboards and I claimed the easy one.

Pans:



After

Cookie sheets and pans.  No after picture but all I did was remove the bags from the cupboard.  The dividers help this one stay organized.

Under the sink: Again, it stays fairly neat as I try to keep as little under here as possible.  But a little cleaning didn't hurt.

 

Tupperware cupboard and such:  Always needs a bit of straightening up. 

Canned goods and canning jars:  Here I have put in some flat boxes and consequently all that needed to be done was to bring the rest of the canned goods to the front.

Pans, casserole dishes, etc.

So thankful for my boys' help. 

The total here is 35 things so far.

Keep pressing on,
Steph



Decluttering - Week 1 Day 2 - Kitchen cupboards above

If you want to join us with our de-cluttering adventure - Start here. 

Yesterday we started with our kitchen drawers.

Today we're doing the top cupboards.  Join me in the adventure of a little spring cleaning and a little de-cluttering.

Above the fridge:


Before

After

What does not belong

 Coffee or tea anyone?  Before and after

                                                                             
            
Sauces and overflow of spices:

 Before and after

Cups and water bottles and pitchers:

Toaster, thermoses, gravy boats and butter dishes:

Baking supplies:

Canning jars, blenders and lunch containers:

Dishes

What I found to get rid of:

There was trash again, but threw that all away.  Some of this will go in the trash bins for the dump, others will be given away.

The total for the day is 15 things.  Total for this challenge 25 things.

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Tomorrow is the bottom cupboards.  In my house, that means it will be a little more painful than the top cupboards.

 

                      

 

Decluttering - Week 1 Day 1 - Kitchen drawers

We're starting de-cluttering today!!!! If you didn't see Friday's post, go here.  I'm kind of excited because I love having my drawers and cupboards neat again.  It doesn't take long till it's back to "normal" but I hope that normal is more organized than it was before.

Remember two things:

• a half hour
• 10 things

Don't forget to ask yourself - do I use it? do I need it?  does it have value?

Another bonus - you can spring clean as you go.  I just took a minute to wipe out the drawers today and to wash the silverware holders and voila I'm done with spring cleaning in that section.  I'm not saying that when you are done with these eight weeks that all the things you normally do in your spring cleaning will be done, but a lot of things I would overlook will be done, and I will be well on my way to having a deep-cleaned house.

So here are the before and afters:  Remember junk drawer and spices come later on in the weeks, so I didn't do those two drawers. 

Towels:

Oops - have to do laundry.  So that was easy, just wipe it out and replace the drawer.

 Hotpads and electric cord:

What I need

All the things in the drawer

The drawer now - with a couple of hotpads out for washing

 Silverware drawer:

Everything from the drawer

What belongs in the drawer

Much better!!!!  Dishes aren't finished yet. 

The drawer for all the extra utensils, dish cloths, bibs and aprons

On the counter, it looks even worse. 

What doesn't belong - keeping what's on the left, throwing away what is on the right

Drawer for spatulas and wooden spoons etc.

What doesn't belong

Bags

Everything on the counter

Ahh, better, the notes for my brownies are in a ziploc bag for the next time I make brownies.

What is not trash but will have to go -- 10 things exactly not counting trash.
But trash does count, I just didn't want to pull it back out of the trash to count it. 

 Keep pressing on,
Steph

Tomorrow is the upper cupboards in the kitchen

Decluttering

Do you remember our journey to de-clutter our home not too long ago?  Well to be honest it was long enough ago that it is needed again at our house.  So for the next 8 weeks, my plan is to de-clutter my house.  Would you like to join me?

Why de-clutter?

• save money - do you ever buy something and then find out later you have a lot of that item?
• save time - do you ever spend hours trying to find the item that you know you have?
• save your sanity - by not running into the first two problems

What do you need?

• 30 minutes or less every day, not including weekends
• a place to put the things you are choosing to get rid of
• large boxes or garbage bags for sorting
• a date to have a garage sale or to give away the things you collect

Things to consider:

• Do I use it?
• Do I need it?

Week 1

1. Kitchen drawers
2. Kitchen cupboards - upper
3. Kitchen cupboards - lower
4. Kitchen junk drawer
5. Kitchen linens

Week 2

1. Kitchen other or pantry
2. Kitchen cookbooks and recipes
3. Videos, CDs and DVDs
4. Your desk or work area
5. Children's books - Day 1

Week 3

1. Children's books - Day 2
2. Adult books - Day 1
3. Adult books - Day 2
4. Medicine/vitamin cupboard
5. Children's art work

Week 4

1. Magazines and newspapers
2. Decorative items in living areas
3. Furniture - throughout the living area
4. Clothing - Kid dressers - Day 1
5. Clothing - Kid dressers - Day 2

Week 5

1. Clothing - Kid closet - Day 1
2. Clothing - Kid closet - Day 2
3. Clothing - Master closet
4. Clothing - Master bedroom dressers
5. Bathroom #1

Week 6

1. Bathroom #2
2. Entry hall/mudroom closet
3. Shoes
4. Garage - Day 1
5. Garage - Day 2

Week 7

1. Craft or sewing supplies
2. Laundry room
3. Linen closet
4. Backyard shed
5. Kid's school supplies or backpacks

Week 8

1. Holiday supplies
2. Kids' toys - Day 1
3. Kids' toys - Day 2
4. Closets
5. Any other area that has not been addressed yet

Are you ready?  Let's start Monday and before school is out for the year we'll be done.

Keep pressing on,
Steph