A Little Inspiration.....

Most of you have probably heard of or watched the new series on Netflix called "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo." I think it's a great show and I hope many of you are drawing inspiration from it. While I plan to share my thoughts on that series in a later post, for now I wanted to share a little inspiration of my own....

This client wanted a kitchen update and I was happy to help! While her kitchen was by no means in total disarray, she was a busy working mom (with four kids!) who moved into her house in a hurry, placing things randomly in cabinets, and was finally ready to organize it in a more functional fashion. 

We first started with the pantry....categorizing goods, purging expired foods, and creating zones with labels on each bin (Ex: Breakfast, Grains, Canned Goods, etc).

One of my favorite organizing supplies is a Lazy Susan! Believe it or not, it works great in pantries. If you look in the picture above, I used a Lazy Susan to organize all of her kids' condiments & PBJ supplies. Makes it easy for adults (and kids) to find what they're looking for!

Another important step was to clear the clutter on the floor of the pantry. We corralled water bottles into a bin, as well as recyclable bags in another one. Once the bin gets full, it's time to let go of a few!

Then we moved onto the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen. This "before & after" is one of my favorites. Again, we purged a few items - duplicates and broken ones - and then used Dollar Store bins to create a holding place for each category (knives, cooking utensils, etc.)

I love when I come across a cabinet in a client's home that is pretty close to empty! This was the case here, as shown in the top picture. This cabinet was located above her fridge, and was very under-utilized. We moved some things around, and were able to free up this cabinet to act as a china storage spot! A few shelf helpers did the trick and now her china will be stored in a safe & very visible space.

One of my last favorite spaces in this client's kitchen was her narrow coffee cabinet. I added a few shelf helpers and moved her keepsake mugs to the top shelf. My client was even able to pull in a few mugs from other cabinets that had been placed sporadically throughout the kitchen. Now all of her coffee supplies & mugs are in the same place!

All in all, this kitchen makeover took close to 7 hours. We were able to completely update her walk-in pantry, as well as better organize all of her kitchen cabinets. 

Please let me know if you could use my help with a similar project!