One of my favorite rooms to organize is the kitchen, so when a friend sends out a kitchen SOS signal, I jump at the chance to roll up my sleeves and dig in. Laura to the rescue because you all know how much I love a good organizing fix!
My girlfriend has these great cabinets in her kitchen with large pull out drawers that she uses as a pantry. Even though the cabinets are older, the amount of storage they provide is awesome and pull-out drawers make it so easy to find what you need because things aren’t getting lost in the back of a cabinet.
My friend was overwhelmed though with her overflowing drawers. With overwhelm often comes procrastination because we imagine that we just don’t have the necessary 300 hours that we think we need to complete the daunting task in front of us. I may not do that with organizing but I definitely do with writing assignments. Oops, not so good when I write for a living. I actually organize stuff as a way to procrastinate from writing which is bad news for my blog readers but really great news for my friend 🙂
So I took her through my PROCESS steps and we started by doing a little space planning. I asked her all sorts of questions about what was working and what wasn’t working in her space. Then we got to work and removed everything from the cabinets to sort, organize and purge.
Today, with her permission of course, I’m going to show you four of the drawers we organized. We tackled other cabinets as well but we hadn’t quite finished those when I left. I gave my friend a little homework to do, I’m nice like that 🙂
Do you want to see the joy? Here we go!
Cabinet before:
Cabinet after:
A closer look at each of the drawers.
Top drawer before:
Top drawer after…spices. Containers make a world of difference! My friend also labeled the tops of all her spices with a Sharpie to really make life easier. Also when was the last time you checked expiration dates in your pantry? Take 5 minutes to do it today.
Middle drawer before:
Middle drawer after….cans and other foods.
Bottom drawer after….baking supplies.
This drawer below was part of another cabinet with pull out drawers.
This is the before:
My friend still wants to go through and do a little purging here but this is what a quick 5 minutes of organizing looks like. The bins I added are so important for adding necessary limits and boundaries.
Glad I could help out a friend. It didn’t take as long as she thought it would and she was so happy to get it done as it has been bothering her for so long. Maybe you can relate with spaces in your own home. Please don’t stress. If you are overwhelmed with how much needs to be done throughout an entire room, break the project down. Like we did above, start with one drawer at a time.
Plan it out.
Remove everything from space.
Organize – sort like with like – purge excess.
Containerize.
Evaluate the new system.
Solve what’s not working.
Smile.
That’s the PROCESS that will help you organize any space. If you are struggling with an area, let me know or tag me in a photo of your space on Instagram. You’ve got this!
Thankful Friend says
Having my gross, disorganized cupboards on your blog is SO WORTH IT- I’ve prepared a few meals and lunches after this quick fix Laura, and my frustration in finding things and digging through the mess is GONE! Thank you for the help!! Now I’m not embarrassed for others to open my cupboards because all its going to reveal now is how useful baskets and tubs are in keeping me sane!! Woohoo!!! Thanks again 🙂
Laura Wittmann says
My friend, you are a blessing to me. Everyone needs a helping hand once and awhile, if it’s not with organizing, it’s with something else and that is the beauty of friendship. I love doing life with you!
Nancy says
Please come organize mine!
Laura Wittmann says
I so wish I could personally come help each of my readers but hopefully my blog helps in some small way.