Spring Cleaning: the Kitchen

A good friend of mine has recently challenged a bunch of us to the daunting task of spring cleaning. Since we just moved into a freshly built house, I thought I had this in the bag.
"Everything's clean and new!" I thought. "I won't have much to do..."

...

It's amazing how much dust and dirt can build up in just a few months. My friend's idea was for each of us to just take it one room at a time, one room per week. This way it doesn't feel as daunting. Genius, she is.
We started with the Master bedroom, and then headed to whatever other bedrooms we had in the house. This week's room is the big one - the kitchen:

-Wipe cupboard doors
- De-clutter/ sort-out/and clean cupboards inside
- Wipe appliances outside and in (yes that includes the oven)
- Move appliances and clean behind
- Of course the light ;)
- aaaaand shine your sink 

As I sit here in my pajamas with my second cup of coffee, so far I've got the cupboard doors wiped down. Go me! While I was wiping them down, I had the idea to do a post on some of the organization and de-cluttering "tricks" (for lack of a better word) I've done with my kitchen. They're generally pretty straight forward, but I thought I'd share them anyway. 

Let's start with the drawers. We decided to go with an IKEA kitchen when we were building, partly because a) they're cheap, and pretty comparable in quality b) we've used IKEA kitchens in our two previous homes and were very happy with them and c) IKEA has tons of great drawer and cupboard inserts for organizing.

OK, I didn't think of item c when we were deciding on the kitchen. It was mostly the cost factor. But IKEA really does have great organization options! See here. 

I have a ways to go yet with where I want the organization to be, but let's get to the pictures.

These drawers are fitted with the Rationell drawer divider for shallow and deep drawers, and the Variera insert for spice jars. I totally recommend the spice jar insert, if you have the drawer space - it makes it so easy to see all your spices. Maybe one day I'll get matching spice jars and nicer labels.... 

 My next favorite thing: these pantry pull-outs:

I definitely need to organize each drawer individually yet, but units have been so much better than an under-used built in corner pantry.  

Now on to some non-IKEA related notes. I'm not too sure where I came up with this idea, if I had seen it somewhere before or if it just came to me one time, but I think it's pure genius, in my humble opinion. I used to stuff all of my plastic grocery bags in the cupboard under the sink, just by themselves. As you know, or can probably imagine, it got to be quite messy. So I had this unused baby wipes container. I swore to myself to never have more plastic bags than what fits in this box, and it has kept things so much neater! And you can even take it one step further and decorate the box.

Next is a decluttering trick. I hated, loathed, despised having the microwave sitting on my counter taking up precious counter space. But I wasn't quite ready to ditch it completely yet (even though it crossed my mind many times). So, one night I got CJ to move it here: 

That awkward huge cabinet above the fridge that gets used for...... what, exactly? Putting the microwave up here has made my quality of life so much better. I don't have to stare at the ugly thing all day. And it only took moving the back panel of the cupboard a bit for the cord to fit through. The outlet was already there for the fridge!

So as I sit here in my pajamas (but this time because it has taken me a. whole. day. to write this post), and no more done on the kitchen then the cupboard doors, I challenge you, too, to take spring cleaning one week at a time. It really does make a difference and a feeling of great achievement you shall soon have.

Wow I need to go to bed.

Til next time,
-J