The following is a guest post about how an organized smoothie cabinet from regular contributor, Rachel.
I’ve been doing some Spring cleaning that has evolved into Spring purging around my house. Recently, I tackled an upper cabinet in our kitchen that has been on my de-clutter list for awhile now – our smoothie cabinet.
This space is a narrow cabinet that holds an assortment of smoothie add-ins and healthy supplements, as well as a few other related kitchen gadgets. All of it is located above the countertop space where our blender rests. I did my best to give you some good before and after shots to see the benefit of a good purge and tidy session that took me less than 20 minutes. Lets jump right in to how things really looked for longer than I care to admit.
As you can see above, if left unchecked any space can get out-of-control. Instead of rearranging the mess, I kept adding to it and shoving more inside. So much so, that I started using the countertop space next to the blender to keep my vitamins and a handwritten favorite smoothie recipe. In addition, I had printed recipes hanging on the outside left of the cabinet AND written recipes on sticky notes inside the door. Good grief! No wonder I had my eye on getting this small space spruced up for Spring!
Below are the containers I had on hand for this project. Two small sized baskets similar to THESE purchased years ago from The Container Store and a 9″ non-skid lazy susan like THIS (affiliate link). After I removed the cabinet contents and de-cluttered, these three items were all I needed to organize what was leftover. Oh, and I gave everything a good cleaning, including the cabinet shelves. That’s how I classified this as a Spring cleaning chore. 😉
I hesitate to admit, but I honestly found everything I needed to organize this space within my home. I know we don’t all have the same container stash to resource and I hope that doesn’t frustrate you. I linked (in the paragraph above) the products I used in this post if you’re curious, with the encouragement that you always try to shop your home first when addressing your own spaces.
So here is the final organized result…
You can see, I had so much extra space that the entire top shelf contains nothing! All my supplements and smoothie add-ins fit on the bottom two shelves. My Pampered Chef food chopper and my Cuisinart immersion blender (affiliate link) went above the smoothie contents. I kept a variety of smoothie-related sticky notes on the inside door. It’s an easily located resource for early morning smoothie assembly.
Below is a close-up of the bottom two shelves; my main smoothie stash aside from fridge and freezer foods. Everything that once toppled over now fits on one lazy susan with room to spare on the right side for the blender tamper. The surplus ingredients or refill packages go in the baskets above. Before, I always disliked having the tamper piece on the countertop next to the blender. I don’t use if frequently enough to warrant it as necessary countertop clutter, so you can imagine the little happy dance I did when it fit perfectly inside the cabinet. 🙂
One quick tip I want to share if you use smoothie add-ins other than fruits and veggies. I use different things like Chia seeds or Maca powder that require measuring (although not right now because of my healthy new weight loss). Most powders and seeds like this are measured in tablespoons. I recommend grabbing extra measuring spoon sets and adding a tablespoon piece to each of your bags or containers. It saves time and makes measuring simple without the hassle of hunting down what you need in other parts of the kitchen. You can grab extra measuring spoons at the grocery store or dollar store inexpensively. That way, you always have the tools you need on hand during assembly. I personally use my baby’s old formula scoops. They measure a tablespoon exactly and are free. 🙂
I’ll leave you with final before and after comparisons of both inside and outside my smoothie cabinet project. The outside shot isn’t as impressive, but you can see that a little purging on the inside allowed me to clear the countertop space of everything but the blender itself. I’m happy and it didn’t take anything but a few minutes during the baby’s nap time. 🙂
In the professional world, I’m a nurse by trade. But, around our house, I’m known as Mommy to our young daughters. My two worlds collided and began shaping into a blog. Useful Beautiful Home represents the hours I’ve dedicated to managing my household as efficiently as possible. I offer you motivation to keep your home healthy, organized, and welcoming. My goal is to share what I’ve implemented in my home to inspire you with fresh ideas and to encourage you to keep up the good work in yours!
- *Please note that affiliate links are included in this post to make it easier for you to find what is being referenced. A small commission is made should you purchase product using these links, but this is at no extra cost to you. As always, any and all opinions are genuinely my own – or the author, in the case of posts by my guest contributors. Thank you!*
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